Emergence (2 page)

“It’s so good to feel you again. Am I really that bad, that repulsive?” The Freilux ran his rough, calloused hand up and down her forearm. For a second she felt a pain, as if he touched a newly-formed bruise, but she saw no blemish. “Perhaps I am! I love the corpulence of my body; delight in the rolling landscape that is me! For my power, my title forces me on those I wish, and they must submit.” He grabbed her arm tightly, making her wince with pain, and she knew he had made it completely through. “I don’t break people; I make them break themselves. And when they are broken, I delight in forcing myself on them, reveling in their disgust.”

Toby’s hand grabbed onto her right hand, and began to pull. “You must come though now!”

His strength pulled her mostly through, but the Freilux still had a grasp on her left hand, which held the Sphere. If she released it, she would make it through, but if she held on, she knew the Freilux would be able to bring her back.

“Toby, I can’t lose it!” she cried. “It’s the only way I can see father again.”

Toby’s face solidified in front of hers and she had forgotten how handsome he was, how resolute and confident his gaze was. His blue eyes were as a sea of calm, cooling the fires of anxiety within her. Around him swirled clean, fresh air, filled with the promise of repose.

“Hold onto it tight,” he said, with a strong voice she was overjoyed to hear, “and pull with all your might.”

She tightened her grasp, and tried to squeeze through the opening with it, but the Freilux’s grasp was too strong. She heard him laugh as he squeezed her burned forearm.

“It hurts, Toby -- it hurts!” she screamed.

“We need the Sphere, Melissa -- you know that!”

She tried to pull, but her strength was fading and the pain was too much.

“I . . . can’t, Toby. I’m sorry.”

She let go, and fell forward into his waiting arms, crying.

“Melissa . . .”

“I’m sorry, Toby!” She clutched onto him frantically, her face buried in his chest, unable to meet a gaze she had waited so long to see. “I just couldn’t! I’m not that strong . . .”

She could feel him sigh, then his hand smoothing her hair. “Lissa, I’m glad you’re alright. We can always steal back the Sphere later.” She felt his hand gently lift her face up, and finally, through a veil of tears, she saw his kind face again.

“Toby!”

As she cried his name, they could hear the Freilux laugh hysterically.

“One day, we’ll be laughing over him,” said Toby. “One day, my sister, one day . . .”

She glanced around; looking at the shadow world she had escaped to, and despaired.

Chapter 2

She felt relieved and hopeful, being next to her brother again. It had been over a year since she held his hand, two years since the death of their father, and it brought her to tears to think on how much she missed.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you, Toby.” She gazed up once again into eyes that lost the warmth she had remembered. They were still steel-blue, but clouded with wrinkles, though he was only twenty-two. His hair, though mostly red, betrayed several shocks of grey, and his face wore a stubbly beard. Sadly, he reminded her of how her father looked in his last days.

The world around her was a grey one, with no horizon line and no sun. She could make out that Toby wore a thick ermine-patterned cloak that covered a black jacket embroidered with gold trim, but had trouble seeing much else clearly, and it was in that moment she realized they weren’t anywhere real. “Are we on a city?”

“No, we are in the void between. I brought you here so I could mask our final destination from the Freilux.”

She leaned heavily into his arms, feeling the weight of the past few hours settle on her. “I . . . I need to get some sleep.”

“Sleep? Haven’t you been following the training methodology I gave you? You can’t sleep, not if you want to see any increases in your skill.”

“But I’m so tired,” she pouted, doing her best performance of an expression that in her youth would always get what she wanted from him.

Toby smiled, and ruffled her hair with his calloused fingers. “I never could say no to you, little Lissa. We have an encampment on the surface.”

“The surface? Can we actually survive down there?”

“It’s tough, but anything is preferable than living under the Freilux.” Gingerly, he lifted her left arm to examine the burns. “You still don’t know how to heal yourself?”

“No, I . . .”

“You haven’t done
any
of the training,” he snapped, bruising her feelings. She watched as he squinted, and felt the burns recede into nothingness on her skin. It felt warm and fuzzy, and she could faintly smell blooming hrrana petals as he finished. Yet she could still feel something remained, some echo of a vicious wound, though nothing was visible. For an instant she saw his eyes cloud with doubt and anxiety, and wondered what it was. “You’ve been complacent, lying in your plush bed, playing with your effete friends.” He shook his head in disappointment. “Much time has been wasted, and we have too little left. Now stand still as I shift us to the surface.”

She waited as he closed his eyes, and felt the pull as they moved out of the temporary grey world and onto the surface of the world of Iqui, and in an instant Melissa understood why all lived in levitating cities. It was a harsh, barren landscape, with howling winds filled with biting snow that whipped about them. Several dozen tents could be seen partially covered by snow. Glowing firespheres pulsed erratically in-between them, keeping hundreds of dark figures huddled close for warmth. She clutched even tighter on Toby’s arm, and he smoothed her shoulder in response.

“Sometimes, I wonder how long they’d last without me,” he said with a tired sigh. “At least it keeps them servile.” He extended his hand, and instantly the firespheres surged brighter, now maintaining an even glow. Cheers went up from the soldiers surrounding them, with a few even raising their hand in thanks to Toby.

Melissa felt conspicuous in her sheer ruffled dress, as it afforded no protection from the elements and left too much skin exposed.

“I . . . I think I need some new clothes.”

“In there you’ll find some warm ones,” he said, gesturing to a small tent. “Also a firesphere to warm you. I have a comfortable bed, though I hardly use it. Sleep as much as you want.”

She embraced him tightly, her head coming just up to his chest. “I love you, dear brother.”

“And I you, Lissa.”

Drifting in and out of sleep, she heard more soldiers pour into the encampment as Toby greeted their leaders nearby. Several times she started at the antics of some of the younger soldiers, and crawled to the entrance of her tent to see if she could recognize anyone. She felt if she could just find someone from school, someone she knew, that she could relax, and believe everything would be alright. But each time she was disappointed, as the armies came from every part of the ovoid but hers.

She was fully woken once by much laughing, followed by shouting that included her name. She crawled just outside her tent, where she had a view of a large gathering of men and women in dress uniforms.

“You mean your sister couldn’t be entrusted with something as simple as a glass sphere?” yelled a thin, arrogant-looking man, with eyes that glowed in green. “How are we to move forward? How can we bring back the fifteen cities destroyed and all their people?”

“It was only a guess that we could use the Centric Sphere like that anyway,” replied Toby. “No one has ever been able to conjur a physical manifestation of power from the Sphere.”

“And yet your father hung onto it like it was his own flesh and blood.”

“
Yes
,” grudgingly admitted Toby, as he took another bite from the leg of valla he had at his side. It was then Melissa finally acknowledged that not only had Toby grown older, but had grown fatter. His countenance wasn’t the genial one she remembered; rather it was mean, sharp, and devoid of pity. “We will get the Sphere back -- just have faith. Besides, the Freilux isn’t as strong as . . .” She could feel Toby’s gaze pierce the darkness and haze, divining that she was awake. “He isn’t as strong as he needs to be. We have nothing to worry for the moment.”

What was he about to say?
she thought, as she slipped back into sleep, with her dreams haunted by scores of igra chasing her and the Freilux’s laugh rumbling through the dark landscape of her mind.

Chapter 3

In the morning, Melissa came to be introduced to Generals. Of course, it was less like an introduction than it was a presentation, for they scanned her from top to bottom, with a few even daring to scan her mind. Her mother taught her long ago how to rebuff such scans, but it took a little while before she could remember how to do it effectively, and by then her fear and indecision was plain for all to see.

Toby and a few others manipulated rock to create several low structures to shelter the newly arrived troops, igniting a warming sphere in each. By the end of the day, Melissa saw Toby was exhausted, and lay without sleeping on a rough bed, wrapped in a thick canvas cloak with red stains along its hem. She thought he looked like a flying leviathan caught in a net, one whose bulk proved to be its undoing.

“Brother, you’ve grown fat.”

“What else is one to do when one is awake all the time?” he snapped angrily. “I could never have made this city if not for my sacrifice.”

Melissa sat back against a wall, pulling her legs in tightly.

“Are you still cold? Here,” he said, sitting up. “Let me fabricate another sphere.”

“No,” she said, rushing to him, holding his hands down. “You have sacrificed so much already. I can manage.” She sat next to him, and they both huddled together for warmth around the lone firesphere. Melissa’s very soul was warmed by his presence as remembrance of her great love for him came flooding back. Images of their late nights spent staying up and talking came back, as well as the silly pranks they would play on the courtiers of father’s court.

“What happened to you?” she meekly asked. “When you left, so many thought you . . . ran away.”

“I know, and though I couldn’t care a whit what they thought, I did regret leaving you without a word. The Freilux . . . well . . .”

“What brother? You can tell me anything.”

Toby sat for a moment in thought, then asked; “did you ever tell me of the Freilux’s roving eyes, his attempts at seduction on you?”

Melissa blushed. “How did you know?”

“Your mind isn’t trained sufficiently to conceal even something that embarrassing from me.”

“So . . . what did he do to you?” she asked meekly.

He took a deep breath, like he was about to take a deep and dangerous plunge. “You know the Freilux went to school with our father. They were close friends, from what I’m told, though I believe he always envied the fact that father would one day rule not only Imathrin, but the entire world as well. He was always a small man who envied those with power, even cursing them openly to try to make himself important. He soon became father’s chief critic, questioning his every policy, persuading nobles of the court to conduct inquiries into father’s dealings and policies. At every council session he would propose that father relinquish his power in favor of a parliamentary system, where many would rule instead of one.”

“So when father fell ill,” continued Toby, “and could no longer run the affairs of state, the Freilux was nominated to run them for him. When father died, we were given over to the Freilux, as by the code at the time, I would inherit father’s title when I came of age and was pronounced a Provni Archsussa. But the Freilux hated me and everything I stood for. He beat me mercilessly, slamming my head into walls, breaking my bones on the marble floor, only to heal them a few minutes later, so he could break them again. He was determined to keep me weak, so I would never become an Archsussa, and father’s title would fall to him.”