Changing of the Glads (6 page)

They returned to the burned-out fire, and she watched in awe as he hid all evidence they had been there.  He piled dirt over the remnants of the fire, scattered the stones, and then used fallen leaves and twigs to hide them.  He also used a tree branch to fluff the grasses where they’d lain during the night.  When he was done, the place looked totally undisturbed.  The last thing he did was pull a vial from his belt.

“Stand back.  This will not be pleasant.”  He carefully wriggled the cork from the vial and sprinkled two drops on the ground. 

A shock wave rolled across the grass and entered the tender lining of her nose.

Her hand flew up to stop the onslaught, but it was too late. 

The odor burned her sinuses, and tears coursed down her face.  Even her ears seem to be affected, rumbling like thunder in the distance. 

Pressing her hand against her mouth and nose, she tried to force her eyes to open, but they refused.  The smell continued, turning her stomach.  She fell to the ground as the meat she’d just eaten made its way back out. 

What was in that vial?  It left her lying on the ground, unable to right herself, open her eyes, or even call out. 

Max scooped her trembling body into his arms, and she could feel him moving quickly from the campsite.

The smell and its effects lingered for some time.  When Zalphia could finally open her eyes, Max put her down. 

“Forgive me.  I should have had you go off a way.  Skunk can be horrible if you’re not used to it.”

“And you’re used to that horrid smell?”

He laughed low and rhythmic, soft and supple.  “Yes, for most of my life I lived near them.  My father’s hounds would chase them and come home reeking.”

“Hounds?”

He shook his head.  “Another time I will explain more to you.  For now, the smell will hide our scent and foil the trackers’ attempts to follow us.”

She’d forgotten about the trackers.  Men who could smell their quarry, follow footprints, and read bent foliage to find anyone who tried to escape.  Would they be near?  Of course, but hopefully Max’s tactic would buy the two of them time. 

Max seemed to know exactly what to do, what would happen, and how to achieve the freedom they desired.  He was so much more than she could hope for, more than a dream deep in the night.  This dark warrior was her protector, the person she desired to rest against, and the man she would kill for.  He would make sure the trackers never found them.  But if they did, she’d die saving him. She shook her head.

“I know.  You don’t understand how I know what I know.  While I lived here, on this planet, I was taught about our lives on Selestia.”

“Our lives?”

“Yes.  I learned about us and our family, the one you and I had before we came here.  And then, of course, I learned from my human family.  You have only memories of here and being human, although you dreamed of us in Selestia.”

She had?  She had dreamed about living free and doing things she had only heard about.  But could those dreams be memories?  Memories from a different life? 

“I don’t understand.”

“I lived with you before, before we came here to save them.”

“Save who?”

He furrowed his brows, but a smile cracked his face.  “Did you ask this many questions of your trainer?”

Platy’s frustration at her many questions leaped to mind.  “I did.  Drove Platy mad.  But in asking, I learned how to never lose a battle.  My questions made me the fighter that I am.”

“The best, I understand.”

Zalphia hung her head.  “No. Nothing compared to you.”

He raised one brow.  “Oh, you misjudge.  You could have beaten me had you really desired to.  Only you decided that you did not wish to win.  You wanted me to accomplish my goal.  I would gladly die by your hand over and over before ever harming you.  It was torture to wait until we could be pitted against one another, until the time I could steal you away from the arena and this life.  But we are here now, together.”

“I don’t understand.  I couldn’t use my mind to trick you, not like I’ve done before.”

“There would be no need.  You are far more powerful than you know.  I alone could never have killed an entire arena full of humans.  It took the both of us.”

“But I just helped you to do it.  You are stronger physically than me, and I’ve seen what you can do with your mind.  How could I ever beat you?”

He laid his hand against her cheek.  The intensity in his eyes made them a shade darker.  “You still do not see how it works, do you?”

She shook her head.  He must be mad.  It had only taken a couple of minutes for him to best her.  “But in the arena, you had me pinned.”

“Yes, because you decided that it should be so.  If you had wanted, I would have been the one on my back, and you could rip the heart from my chest. I would have gladly given it, for without you, it does me no good.”

“Max, I don’t understand.”

“I know, but you will.  I will help you understand how this all works later.  Now we must continue on.  Are you sufficiently over your nausea?  Will you be able to walk?”

She nodded.  Wonder at all he said rolled inside her mind.  Would she ever understand?

He shouldered a large pouch, which she assumed held the meat and everything else he’d used where they’d spent the night, and strode off.  When she realized he’d been carrying all of that and her besides, her jaw dropped.  He truly was something, this man of hers. 

Following behind, she gazed at the towering trees, the ones whose smell delighted her. 

What was it he’d called them? 

Oh, yes, pines. 

CHAPTER 6

The thick trunks of the towering trees sheltered the ground from the prying, sultry rays of the sun.  Zalphia squinted into a glancing beam filled with tiny motes which floated and danced like small bugs amidst the blazing brilliance of the shaft.  The green tips of the foliage reached so high they seemed to be a part of the pale blue sky. 

Her gaze dropped back to the brush and grass, and she realized Max’s long strides were leaving her lagging behind.  Time to stop admiring the strange scenery and keep her mind on escape.  He certainly had his senses peeled and ready as at that exact moment he glanced behind and motioned for her to catch up.

Picking up her pace, she closed some of the distance between them before pain shot between her toes.  

“Damn it to Hell.” 

Zalphia jumped on one foot as she pulled a long brown splinter out.  Max called these blasted things needles.  Needles?  Ha! More like knife tips.  She studied the hole left by the offending point.  Blood.  See? Needle her ass.  These spikes should be used in the arena.

A shocked breath filled her lungs.  The arena!  Her eyes flitted to where Max stood, facing her and waiting patiently for her to join him.  She had to keep her mind on leaving the trackers behind. 

“You son-of-a-bitch,” she muttered, tossing the offending needle to the ground.

Max laughed.

Zalphia jumped and tipped off the one foot she perched on.  How did he get so close without her hearing him?

“Such sayings should not be coming from you,” he admonished, adeptly catching her before she hit the ground.

“Thanks.”  She brushed non-existent dirt from her clothing.  “Why? Don’t you cuss when you’re annoyed?”

He shook his head. 

“Never?”  Zalphia studied his face.  Fingers of thought reached in and examined his memories.  He stood stone-still, a tiny grin on one side of his face as she combed and prodded
her way through his fights and his childhood.  He had been hurt before, sometimes badly, but he was telling the truth.  Not a harsh word ever passed his lips.  But not only that, he never even considered saying what she so often let roll off her tongue with ease. 

He was so different from anyone she had been around.  Most who spent their days amongst the Glads cursed excessively.

Max laid a hand on her shoulder, a kind look deep in his blue eyes.  “It is not our way.  It should not be yours either.”  He shook his head.  “Living amongst the worst humankind has to offer has truly changed you.”

“Humankind?”

“Yes, humankind.  They are the ones who inhabit this planet.”  He lowered his pack to the ground.  “Here, sit.  We must rest.”

Zalphia looked around.  The ground was covered with many of those
needles. 
Sit? Here?  Really?

She glanced at Max.

He rolled his eyes and sank cross-legged onto the bed of knife points.

If he could endure the pointy spikes, so could she.  Crossing her ankles, she gingerly lowered herself down.  Thanks to the covering over her buttocks, the offending points were held at bay, and she relaxed.  If she’d had on just her Glad gear... well, she didn’t want to think about what that would feel like.

“You are humorous.”  He chuckled, and she realized she hadn’t pulled her mind away from his.  The channel remained open, but she drew back, closing the door between them.

A quick flick of his tongue across his upper lip and then his teeth raking his bottom one drove all thought of pine stickers from her mind.  She wanted those lips again, the same action they’d taken inside the arena.

“Zalphia,” he began.

Her eyes flicked to his, and she was glad he hadn’t just read her thoughts.

“We are not originally from this world.”

“Of course we are,” she said.  “At least I was born here, weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t.  And neither were you.  We did come as infants and were placed with human parents as their own children, but we are from another planet.  Selestia.  We came here to turn these children back to the path they were meant to follow.”

“I don’t understand.  My mother said I was her child.”

Max nodded.  “You were her child, as much hers as if you came from her own body, but you didn’t”

“How did we get here then?”

“That is difficult to explain.  Selestia watches over the lower planets.  This one has not developed in the way set out for them.  Something changed the path they were following.  We...”   His finger wagged between the two of them.  “We were sent to change that path.  The Elders placed us here with our human parents.  However, when you were very small, someone discovered your mental abilities, the way you can reach into other’s minds.  Because of that, they took you to be a Glad.  You and I both would have been taught by Simeon if you had remained with your mother.”

Here he went again, talking about this Simeon character.  “How could anyone possibly know about my abilities?  I’m not sure I even knew about them back then.” 

“That is unclear.”  Max shook his head.  “It even seemed to stump Simeon, and he sees most of what goes on here on this sphere.  As it was, he taught me what I must do to free you, and what we must do together to accomplish our mission.  That is when he sent me to be trained as a Glad.  It was the only way to get close to you.”  His gaze drifted to the ground, and he picked up a handful of needles, tightening his fingers around them.

Zalphia cringed, imagining what they would be doing to the inside of his hand.

“I knew how it would affect me.”  He opened his fist and let the crushed bits fall to the ground, then his eyes met hers.  They darkened, and his brow lowered.  “But I would do anything to rescue you from the horrors of the arena.”

Inhaling slowly, Zalphia’s chest shuddered and shook as she released the air.  “I... uh.”

Did he know just what Platy had put her through all those years ago?  She hoped that at least that remained hidden.  She set her jaw.  He didn’t need to know what she suffered at the hands of her trainer.  But inside the arena, there she seldom felt as he had. 

“I’ve never lost a match.  No, I don’t see that my life has been all that horrible.”

“Of course.” His head bobbed.  “You would not consider it so as you have nothing to compare it to.  No normal life with a family.” 

“I had parents.”  Defense seemed the best way to show him she hadn’t lost as much as he assumed.

“Living as a small child amidst a family hardly constitutes a normal life.  Do you even remember it?”  He didn’t wait for her to answer.  “Of course you don’t.”

But she did.  She remembered vividly the day her mother delivered her into Platy’s hands.  For months after Platy’s cruelty, she pictured the look on her mother’s face.  The declarations of love as tears were spilled into her hair.  She’d never forget how she pulled away and stood by the trainer, ignoring the last piece of caring she would ever feel.  Did Max know how many times she wished she could go back?  Do it all again?  She would have thrown her arms about her mother’s neck and let her know that she, too, was loved.

“All you remember is the Glad way of life.  But if I could let you peek into the life we had before, you would do anything to get back there.”

The babbling brook and droopy tree drove the pained separation of her and her mother from her thoughts.  She closed her eyes, remembering all he had shown her before their bout and the subsequent annihilation of a whole arena full of
humankind
.  If that had been a glimpse of the past, something the two of them had experienced together, she wished to go back.  She wanted that, that and more of touching lips and feeling his warm bare skin pressed against hers.  But how could they have that?  The Arena Board would never stop hunting them.

“Oh, Zalphia, it is so wonderful there.  Peaceful, calm, and beautiful.  The place I took you to in your mind, it was our special spot.  And there was the music you played.”

Zalphia’s eyes flew open.  “What?  Music?  What is that?”

“You’ve heard it before.  You know the thing Platy put on that machine?”

He’d seen that?  How?

“Yes, that is music.  And you used to play it.”

She shook her head.  “I don’t understand.”

A slight smile tipped his lip, and he seemed to be looking somewhere far away.  “Your favorite, the cello.  You played an instrument called the cello.”

A lump formed behind her tongue, making breathing difficult and stealing her voice for a moment before she managed to swallow the obstruction.  Shudders shook her jaw.  “The music... Platy... 
I could make that
?”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, lending strength and warmth to the chill that overtook her.

“You did.”  He closed his eyes and pulled her against his chest.  “Be certain, you were much better than anything Platy played for you here.  What you did was... well... heavenly.  That is what it was.  You brought tears to my eyes.”

She leaned against his strong arm and let her eyelids slide closed, hearing the soft, deep melodies inside her head.  Need filled her.  She longed to hear the music again.  No, she longed to make it.  But it seemed improbable – impossible even – but everything Max told her up till now rang true.  In her chest it burned, the way she felt when she first heard the rich sounds, the way she had been instinctively drawn to it like it was a part of her.  Something missing in her life that gave it deeper meaning.  Something that kept her alive and free.

“Yes.  You can feel the truth of it, can you not?”

Opening her eyes, she nodded.  “Max, how come you can remember, but I can’t?”

I believe that training from the arena has wiped your early memories away.  They sought to make you a fighter.  That is what you have become, and a very good one at that.  However, using mind powers to win fights... well, it is not right.  Did you never feel guilty for using their vulnerabilities against them?”

Zalphia ran her hand over her eyes, and then covered her mouth with it.  It dropped to her lap, and her head fell to her chest.  When he said it like that, she couldn’t help but feel a stab of pain in her chest.  She always knew it wasn’t right to feed on opponents’ weaknesses, and then use those against them inside the arena.  But that was her training.  Use everything at her disposal to win.  Platy secured early on that Zalphia would do everything she was taught.  Guilt had to be set aside in order to win.

“Do not be upset.  I am not judging you for your actions.”  He pulled back and placed a finger beneath her jaw, bringing her face up so their eyes met.  “I saw that you used all you had in order to win.  You were indoctrinated by Platy and the arena officials.  They knew exactly what they were doing.”

“I assumed that someday I’d meet others with those abilities.  But I never did, not until you.”

“Only those of us from Selestia have the ability.”

“Only the two of us can do that?”

He nodded.  “Only those sent from Selestia to correct the courses upset have the ability and the permission to do so.  You see, we are sent to change the minds of humankind, and that way, we can steer them in the right direction.”

The idea of using her powers to help instead of incapacitate caused her mind to reel.  “You mean, I’m
supposed
to make others choose differently?”

“Have you not done it before?  Used other’s minds to make the fight turn to your advantage?”

She nodded.  “Of course, you’re right.  But I usually used what they wanted against them.  I used their fears or their ambitions.”

“Correct.”  He took her hands in his.  “We do exactly that.  Use their fears and ambitions, but we show them a better way to use them, a way that will benefit all humankind, not just one.  With this power, you and I will turn these children back to the correct way, and the barbarism will end.”

“I don’t understand.  What are they supposed to be?”

Max dropped her hands and sprang to his feet.  He shouldered his pack and reached out to help Zalphia up.  “We will discuss all of this another time.  We must keep moving.  The Kilapon Mountains must be reached before sunset or the trackers will be upon us.” He strode off.

The name he used struck something deep within her.  A familiar ring to the word, but try as she might, Zalphia couldn’t place it. 

“Kilapon?” she asked, running to catch up.  “That sounds so familiar, but I can’t remember why.”

He turned to her with that lopsided smile.  “That is where our home resides, yours and mine.  We were to meet there when you came of age.  But by that time, you were already fighting in the arena.  That is when I entered Glad training.”

All of the strangeness settled behind her eyes, blending with the ever-increasing brightness of the sun.  Zalphia squinted and struggled to match Max’s pace.  Thoughts tumbled inside her skull, causing it to pound heavy thumps like the closing of cage doors over and over, shaking and jarring her brain.  He spoke of things she’d never heard of.  Or had she?  They seemed familiar, but they couldn’t be. Could they?  The more she thought, the louder the clangs got, and the more pain they caused. 

Fighting against the blinding light, and the banging and pain, became harder and harder.  Max forged ahead while her footsteps slowed and faltered until, at last, it became all she could do to take one tortured step at a time.