Aerenden: The Child Returns (Ærenden) (15 page)

Nick
set her down on the ground. He tried to be gentle but the slight movement
brushed her leg against his, sending pain shooting through her body and she
clenched her teeth to avoid screaming. The pain, coupled with Cal’s fear, drove
her heart into frantic beats. She felt sick and squeezed her eyes shut.

Fingers
slid down her face. She could hear Nick’s voice, but through the intensity of
the emotions, she could not make out what he said. She opened her eyes. Nick
laid a hand on her brow. His lips moved and she concentrated on them until his
words made sense. “Focus,” he said. “Focus on my emotions. Feel my power, Meg.
Focus on it.”

She
stared at him, not understanding. The emotions swirled within her. The pain
held her captive. She could not focus on anything else. He laid a palm against
her cheek, and then dropped the block he held over her power and allowed her to
share his emotions.

His
worry overshadowed all other emotions. Slowly, he withdrew it. As it
dissipated, she felt warmth in its place. It was his power, she realized, and
allowed the warmth to flood out Cal’s emotions, leaving only her own. She
covered Nick’s hand, pressed her cheek into his palm and he understood. He
turned from her to roll up her pant leg, his hands gentle and slow.

“How
do your lungs feel?” he asked after she had propped up on her elbows to watch
him.

“Okay,
I think,” she responded, attempting a deep breath. She coughed on the air, but
managed to take another with better results. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good.”
He finished rolling up her pant leg, careful to keep the wet material from
tugging on her skin, then removed the bandage, frowning when a gash a few
inches above her ankle revealed a splinter of bone. “This won’t be though. I
can see why I’m sensing so much pain from you.” He turned to Cal. “We have to
get her to the village soon. I can’t help her with this.”

Cal
walked over to them and examined the injury. “At least she hurt the same leg.
She’ll still be able to move. Do you have any jicab root?”

“In
the backpack,” Nick responded and slipped it off his back. Digging through it,
he found the portion of root they had left. “We can’t build a fire,” he said,
handing it to Cal. “This space is too enclosed.”

“I
don’t intend to,” Cal responded. He took a knife from his pocket and cut off a
small chunk of the root. “Open up,” he told Meaghan, slipping it between her
lips when she followed his direction. “It will taste horrible, but chew it.
Don’t swallow, or you’ll be having visions for the next three days.”

He
handed the root back to Nick.

“You
didn’t take the bark off,” Nick told him. “I thought it was poisonous.”

“It’s
not. It’s the most concentrated part of the root. The Healers say it’s
poisonous because swallowing it can have hallucinogenic properties, and because
too much can be deadly. But it’s useful in some situations. Just don’t tell
anyone I taught you that trick and don’t ever use more than half a thimble’s
full.”

“Good
to know.” Nick put the root away. “How far are we from where we can teleport? I
think we need to—”

“Teleport?”
Meaghan interrupted. She blinked several times, trying to clear her vision.
Nick and Cal looked fuzzy. “You mean like Star Trek?”

“Sort
of.”

“Cool.”
She grinned, and then realized her leg had stopped hurting. “So you’re from
space.”

“Uh….yeah,”
Nick responded. He narrowed his eyes at her before turning a censuring look on
Cal. “What did you do to her?”

“I
took her pain away,” Cal responded. Meaghan giggled and he tapped her on the
arm. “Sit up all the way, please. I need to set your leg.”

“Won’t
it hurt?”

“You
won’t feel much,” he promised. When she did not move, he took her arm and
pulled her into a sitting position. “Brace her,” he told Nick. “And give me
your backpack.”

Nick
handed the bag over and sat behind her, scooting her between his legs. She
flopped back against him, giggling again.

“Do
you think maybe you gave her too much?” Nick asked.

“Not
at all,” Cal responded. He opened the backpack and pulled out the first aid
kit. Removing gauze, tape, and a small pair of scissors from the plastic
container, he set them by his side. “That’s what happens when you chew the
root, which reminds me,” he held out his hand, palm side up. “You’ve had enough.
Take it out of your mouth.”

Meaghan
shook her head. She felt too good. She did not want to let go of that yet.

“Meaghan,”
Cal warned, his tone stern as her father’s had been when she was a child. She
frowned. “Now,” he added and she did as he asked. She spit the root into his
palm. He sighed, tossed it aside, and then wiped his hand on his pants. “I
guess it’s obvious why we’re not supposed to use it that way.”

“I
guess so,” Nick muttered. Meaghan lifted her fingers to touch his cheek,
stopping when his hand met hers. “I’ve never seen her like this.”

Cal
chuckled. “It’s the bark, and it’s only an initial effect. It’s flooded her
system so it mimics drunkenness, but it’ll wear off soon. I need to get this
done before it does. Do you have a good hold on her?”

Nick
brought his arms around her and nodded. Cal began working, cutting a length of
wood from one side of the torch with a pocketknife before setting the torch and
wood aside.  Feeling along her leg, he pressed to gauge the extent of the
break. Although the pain was not severe, she jerked, and then quickly forgot
about it. She watched, fascinated, as Cal placed his hands on the wound and snapped
the bone back into place. Needles ripped into her awareness. She inhaled a
sharp breath and tried to push away from him.

“Nick,
keep her still,” Cal commanded. “I have to finish this.”

Nick
tightened his arms, locking her against him. She struggled, and then went limp.
Tears coursed down her cheeks. “It’s all right,” he whispered when she
whimpered. “It’s almost over. Hold on.”

Cal
quickened his pace. He wrapped the wound in gauze, and then laid the stick
against her leg to brace the bone before immobilizing it with another layer of
gauze. He secured the bandage with tape before leaning back to examine his
work.

“It’s
not bad,” he decided. “I’m sure a Healer could do better, but it only has to
last a few hours.”

“It’s
better than most people could do,” Nick agreed. He released his tight hold on Meaghan,
but did not let her go.

“How
are you feeling?” Cal asked her.

“Loopy,”
she responded. She smeared the moisture from her cheeks with her palms. “I
think it hurts, but I don’t care.”

Nick
sighed. “You may not care, but your body does.” He addressed Cal. “She’s in
enough pain for me to feel it. I’m glad she doesn’t recognize it. Where did you
learn to use jicab that way?”

“From
your mother. She taught it to me during the Zeiihbu War. It came in handy more
than once during battles.” Cal put the supplies away and zipped up the
backpack. “So what’s Star Trek?”

“It’s
something they have on the televisions on Earth, kind of like a weekly short
play.”

“No
kidding? I didn’t realize they knew about teleporting.”

“They
do but they think it’s fake, and when they pretend to do it, they don’t do it
the same way we do.”

“What
do you do then?” Meaghan asked. “Can I do it too?”

“Only
when you’re with a Guardian,” Nick answered. “Teleporting is like using a
portal, but Guardians can do it by themselves. It’s one of our powers. We can
travel from one spot to another within a limited distance.”

“Are
you sure?”

“Of
course I’m sure. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”

“Then
why are we walking?” She crossed her arms in front of her. “Why don’t we
teleport to your village?”

“I
wish we could,” he answered. “The Mardróch can sense the signature trail
teleporting leaves behind and they can follow it. We’d be caught right away.
The only way to do it safely is in a large group where everyone is going
somewhere different. It mixes up the teleporting signatures so the Mardróch
can’t follow them.”

Puzzled,
Meaghan looked to Cal, then back at Nick. “But we’re a group.”

Nick
chuckled. “Not quite a big enough group I’m afraid.”

“There’s
another way,” Cal told them. “These caves prevent the Mardróch from sensing the
signature. It has something to do with the crystals, I think. There are caves
like this all through the underground in this part of the kingdom. Provided you
teleport from one to the other, the Mardróch will never catch you. We can jump
from here to one closer to the village.”

“Let’s
do that now,” Nick decided. He nodded toward the bruises and cuts on Cal’s
arms. “I think you should come to the village with us. It wouldn’t hurt you to
have a Healer look at you.”

“He’ll
come. He’s in pain too,” Meaghan muttered. Leaning back, she rested her head
against Nick’s chest. “And he feels love and excitement when you mention the
village. There’s someone there.”

“No
use hiding anything from her,” Cal responded with a lopsided grin. “I guess
it’s a good assumption she isn’t focusing on your power anymore.” He handed
Nick the backpack and picked up the torch. “Ready?” he asked, then without
waiting for a response, he placed his empty hand on Meaghan’s back and for the
second time in short memory, her world dissolved into white.

A
SECOND
cave appeared around Nick, its size and layout so close to the first he
wondered for a moment if Cal had been unable to make the teleport. Similar crystals
flashed brilliant light from nearly every surface. Large boulders of the same
size and shape lined the walls. Even the dirt floor seemed to be the exact
shade of the floor in the cave they had left behind. But unlike the first cave,
a single beam of yellow sunlight descended from the ceiling, painting a circle
in the center of the room. Cal moved to one wall to study the boulders and Nick
stood, drawing Meaghan up with him.

“There’s
a tunnel to the outside,” Cal told him. “We’ll need to crawl through it.”

“Can
you manage it?” Nick asked Meaghan. She wobbled her head and he took it as a
nod. “Where is it?” he asked Cal.

“It’s,”
Cal paused, took a step forward and pointed to a boulder on the far wall,
“there.” The boulder slid away from the wall, revealing a small opening.

Nick
crossed the floor toward it, but Meaghan did not move. “Meg,” he said. “We need
to get to the village.”

Her
eyes widened and she shook her head.

He
sighed. “Look, Meg, I know you’re under the influence of the jicab, but you
have to—”

“It
stinks,” she interrupted. She tore her eyes from the hole, bringing them around
to meet his. The cloudiness he had seen in them after Cal had given her the
jicab root had started to clear. “They’re coming,” she said and turned to Cal.
“Close it. Quick. They’re not far.”

Cal
raised an eyebrow at Nick. “Do it,” Nick responded to Cal’s unspoken question.
“Now!” he insisted when Cal hesitated.

Cal
flicked his hand and the boulder slid back into place. Nick slipped his arm
around Meaghan’s waist. She shook. He walked her to a nearby boulder and sat
her down, then he focused his power on sensing what she feared, but found no
danger.

“I
don’t feel them,” he told her. “Are you sure of what you sensed?”

She
nodded. “They smell terrible.”

“Smell?”
Cal asked. He moved in front of her, crouching down to study her face. “Did you
swallow any of the root?”

“No,”
she said. “You told me not to.”

He
turned to Nick, frowning. “I’m not sure I believe her. I think she’s
hallucinating.”

“She’s
not. It’s how her power translates Mardróch emotions.” Nick’s eyes trailed to
the circle of sunlight on the floor then up to the hole that allowed light
through the mountain. He pointed to it. “Can you use the hole to see outside?”
he asked. “We need to know if they’re here.”

“Sure.
I can use smoke from the torch. I don’t see the point in it though. We’re not
sensing them.”

“Do
it, please. I’ll explain later.”

Cal
shrugged and walked to the center of the room. He held the torch under the
hole. The fire blazed, emitting a thick smoke, which turned opaque as it neared
the ceiling. It floated up the hole, escaping into the sky in a long,
continuous trail. Cal narrowed his eyes. “Turn around, twist and ride; seek to
see what others hide. Around the bend, now there’s a friend, around the wall,
tell me all.”

“He’s
singing,” Meaghan whispered to Nick. “He did that when he first spoke to me in
the woods. Why? He doesn’t normally.”

“It’s
a focusing technique Guides learn in school,” Nick responded. “Most of them
stop using it once they graduate, but Cal finds it helps him concentrate
sometimes.”

“Quiet,”
Cal said, turning his head to cast an irritated scowl in their direction. The
smoke waned. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”