Unfit (8 page)

  The stranger at the table turns out to be a business associate of Mr Lanarr, who has brought his family over for dinner. Their agenda dominates the table for most of the dinner despite Mrs. Lanarr’s frequent attempts to divert them to more general topics.

  I make it through without major mishap, since I have Alešan gloating whenever I go to make even the slightest misstep. Dessert is an expensive sorbet, with a chocolate drizzle and fruit on the side. For this, I would happily dine with a dozen Alešans.

  Lessons are delayed while Mr and Mrs. Lanarr make some last minute discussions with their guest. Alešan, Panne and I retire to the study room to wait.

  When I sit in my desk, Alešan walks over and sets her two hands down on it, so she can stare at me.

  “Very good work at dinner, Kwan. I almost couldn’t tell you were born in a manger.”

  “I was born in a warren. My family’s not that poor.”

  “Since you’re so rich and all, why don’t you go back to them and find your own boyfriend?”

  “Alešan!” says Panne, eyes round in shock.

  “I have a boyfriend,” I say. “He’s right downstairs.”

  “No, that one’s supposed to be mine. I was here first. Go find your own.”

  “But you don’t love him. You only want him now to stop me from having him.”

  “How do you know that? Are you reading my mind, tele-creepo?”

  “I don’t need telepathy to see you aren’t capable of love.”

  Alešan stares at me, body stiffening in rage. She leans over and jabs me in the chest with the pointed nail of her index finger.

  “You stay out of his life, tele-creepo, hear me?”

  “Tele-creepo?” asks Mrs. Lanarr, coming in through the door.

  Alešan plunks down in her desk, face serene once more, having recovered her poise. “Kwan’s a telepath, Mrs. Lanarr. I heard she’s a guild fugitive.”

  “Oh really?” asks Mrs. Lanarr. But her mind relays no surprise. Either she’s good at hiding surprise, or Greg has already told her.

  “I’m not a fugitive. I’m a Naiskarin.”

  “For who?” asks Alešan, disparagingly.

  “Kajo Blue. The mystery Lightning from the paper a few weeks ago. I’m his Naiskarin. In fact, he has called me to go on a mission with him when school ends.”

  “I’m so sure,” says Alešan, rolling her eyes.

  “Now, now, let us not discount Kwan’s story so soon,” says Mrs. Lanarr. She studies me with renewed interest. Curiosity leaks out of her mind. It’s the first raw emotion I’ve ever received from her.

  Grandfather was right. This has impressed Mrs. Lanarr.

  “But Mrs. Lanarr‒”

  “Allow her the benefit of a doubt, Alešan. Perhaps life needs her to do something important wherever she is going. Now let’s start tonight’s lesson with basic algebra. Ladies, if you’ll get a sheet of paper ready, I shall quiz you.”

  But I find myself daydreaming during the lesson. Dreaming of a world where Mrs. Lanarr approves of me over Alešan.

  School is back the next day. A group of telekinetic electricians have adjusted the system to give the blacked-out area power from the other stations on the grid. I’m told that the extra load will cause faster core burnouts across town. The damaged station needs to be fixed quickly.

  Between school, sewing for my graduation outfit, and my lessons at the Lanarrs’, I’m very busy. The end of school takes me by surprise. I took on traditional Naiskarin colours for my graduation outfit, with the black dress and white satin pants. I chose red velvet for the belt, to match the crimson sun design on the chest. I even have a blue headband, the physical copy of Kajo’s halo that he uses as his mark.

  In this way, my graduation dress can double as a Naiskarin’s robe. I can tell Kajo’s impressed when he sees it after school.

  “You look very official,” he says.

  “It’s the very least I could do for our future Namika.”

  “A Namika is someone who runs a whole demesne. I’ll just be a Lightning working with what telekinetics I get.”

  “I think you have more gold than the Coalition. Why don’t you declare and have done with?”

  He chuckles. “You’ve hidden that gold for me, right?”

  The heavy bag of gold he gave me two days ago. Auditors would find it at my parents home, so I’ve hidden it under my bed at the Lanarrs’ house. Last night Mrs. Lanarr promised me that no one would need to use my room while I was gone. Kajo’s gold should be safe there.

  “It’s as hidden as I could manage. As you wanted, I gave Dave some. Kimberly had nowhere to hide it, so I still have her share. Why don’t you deposit it at a bank though?”

  “That’s not minted gold. I’d have a hard time explaining to them that I made it.”

  “You can make gold now? Are you kidding?”

  “Let’s go. I’ll show you.”

  Kajo uses his made-up gold to buy us a car. He lets me see him do it behind the salesman’s back.

  It’s my first time sitting in such a fancy new convertible and I lose myself in the joy of the fresh leathery scents.

  “Easy, huh,” says Kajo. “You just break up twelve nitrogens, regroup the protons, and you get one gold and some left over matter. The atmosphere has so much nitrogen, it’s like an infinite supply.”

  All this pushes the limits of the year one chemistry course I was required to take. Mrs. Lanarr wants us to be able to eventually recite the names and symbols of all eighty-two elements, but I’m still stuck on neon.

  “I’ve never heard of Lightnings making gold before.”

  “It’s probably hidden. Otherwise gold would get devalued.”

  I find that hard to believe. Pertran seemed to like gold quite a bit. I can’t imagine he would like it so much if he could make it himself.

  Kajo drives us out of Hillvale and into Iceford, a small town on the border of Graal. It’s my first time here. The bus doesn’t go this far, and my family has never had reason to visit the farms out here. Hillvale looks so small from up here on the escarpment.

  “Hillvale is a cement ant colony nestled in a canopy of green,” I say, causing Kajo to peer at me with a perplexed expression.

  “Don’t get all metaphysical on me now,” he says as he parks.

  Iceford is a crossroads town, with a population of perhaps two hundred. There’s a tiny farmer’s market in sight, along with the three cars and four carts. There are few townspeople to be seen. Likely most of them are out working in the farms at this hour.

  The town’s only bar is open. I go to it to freshen up since I’ve been starting to feel all crampy since this morning. When I come back out, I find Kajo near the market, staring at a statue.

  It’s no ordinary statue, I discover: it’s a
petrification
. A woman who once lived, and has converted herself into marble. I ask Kajo to be certain.

  “Yes,” says Kajo, “That woman probably stood in this very spot when she turned herself to stone.”

  “They’ve placed vegetables at her feet,” I say. “So that she might have something to eat if she comes out of it?”

  “But no one has returned from petrification in a thousand years.”

  The woman’s sightless eyes are turned up towards the sun. Her hair flows as if the wind caught it just before she turned to stone. I can hear thoughts from her: a desperate yearning for the sun. A unquenchable loneliness. Sadness frozen in a vast stretch of eternity.

  It makes me shiver. “This is creepy. Let’s move on.”

  We drive into Graal proper, but a patrol sends Kajo careening off-road to avoid them. The convertible is not designed for that kind of travel, so he uses power to carry it.

  “It’s like being in a futuristic flying car, eh Kwan?”

  “This is really fast.”

  “Nah, just two hundred clicks per hour. What’s up? Why so green?”

  Flying for the first time in my life plus the cramps, mixed in with a speed that tells me I’m about to die. If I could explain all this to him without throwing up, I would.

  Only once past Graal does he slow down and fly close to the ground so I can catch my breath. We’re passing into Farrich. I’m now two entire demesnes from my home. It’s a weird feeling because I can still sense the others back home going about their lives. Kim has just finished a year-end championship ball game against the intramural rivals. Reiki is shopping for an outfit for a party tonight. Hattie whitewashes the bannister rails in front of her house.

  The mind I would most like to connect with is closed to me. I’m starting to suspect that Greg has some minor telepathic blocking ability, because surely by now I should be familiar enough with his mind to reach him.

  When I extend my senses forward to the demesne of Farrich. Their Naiskarin is very strong; he senses me right away. Our minds brush and form a connection.

 
Who are you, and why do you come?

  I sense that he’s older than me. Probably about sixty, although I can’t be sure without a full rapport. He’s strong enough to reach me from all the way here at the edge of the demesne, though. It would be best to exercise caution around such a powerful mind.

 
In fact, you should turn around and leave. Kwan is it? I can’t believe the chronomancers predicted something right for a change.

 
You can see in my mind that we come peacefully. Can you tell me why the chronomancers are here?

  There’s a sudden pain, and I have to dismiss the connection. I believe the Farrich Naiskarin has tried to lash out at my mind. So much for friendship and courtesy.

  “There’s something they don’t want you to find over there,” I tell Kajo, pointing to the centre of town, the direction the Naiskarin’s voice came from.

  “There’s a tall red light there like a spotlight. Maybe that’s it.”

  I see no spotlight from town, but maybe his Lightning senses pick up something my eyes don’t.

  He flies us there, at normal speeds, so it’s nightfall by the time we arrive. The city lights of Farrich glow beneath us. We’re high above the tallest building, but close enough to hear the noise of traffic and the slamming of doors. The grid of street lights is captivating. I want to stare at the people walking on the roads under those lights, but the height makes me dizzy every time I peek.

  “I could do a loop-the-loop to help you overcome that airsickness,” says Kajo.

  “See these nails? They’re sharp enough to claw your face off if you even try it.”

  We find an ugly grey building at the centre of town. It’s stadium-sized and some five stories tall, with bright white floodlights all along the upper edge. The lights cast downward to the street, where a hundred guards roam, protecting it. I see Farrich Lightnings among the guards, as well as a number of chronomancer assassins.

  The guards have been told to hold the doors against attack at all costs. Their minds form a unified thought of these instructions. So intent are they on this goal that I easily reach out to the collective thought and cool it, so the guards will never think to look up.

  I feel the Naiskarin reaching out to them, counteracting my soothing thoughts. For a moment I wrestle him for control of the guards. He’s unable to overpower me, so he settles for injecting chaos into their minds.

  Below us, a cacophony of noise erupts as guards begin to shoot each other. The roar of dying minds is deafening. I release them all and close off my senses so I hear as little as possible. Meanwhile Kajo lands us on the roof of the building.

  “Stay in the car,” says Kajo, getting out.

  Is he serious? I’m curled in the fetal position, trying not to burst into tears at the eerie sight of dying souls rising into the night sky around me. Kajo thinks I have strength to move anywhere during this?

  Kajo separates a ring in the metal roof and disappears into the building. I shut my eyes so I don’t have to look into the accusing dead eyes of those spirits. I close my mind against the dying dreams they try to will upon me.

 
All those people are dying because of you
, says the Naiskarin in my head.

 
How can you blame this on me? How can you to do such a thing to those people?
And who are you?

  His name is Roman. It slips from him under my direct question.

 
My Lord Namika comes to kill you and your Lightning
, says Roman. He might have gone on to say more, but I boot him from my mind.

 
Run, all of you
, I urge the surviving guards.
No orders are worth your lives
.

  It takes a lot of coaxing to get them to disobey orders and flee.

 
Kajo, hurry, before the Namika arrives
.

  Kajo reappears with a woman in tow. She pulls herself up through the hole he’s made in the roof, after he jumps out of it.

  The woman has a roundish, pronounced face. A few strands of light brown hair are visible among her mostly grey, loose hair. She wears dated fashion, with long elbow-length white gloves that would have been the rage in my parents days. Her black dress has a part in it all the way to the top of her right thigh. She wears a sweater over it and holds a broken circuit panel in one hand.

  Hard to tell what to make of this one.

  The Namika arrives to interrupt them. He drops from the darkened sky, wearing a cape and an aura of majesty. His eyes glow blazing white, like phosphorescent coals with mist from dry ice coming out of them.

  What follows is a duel I cannot hope to describe.

  Kajo and the Namika trade a continuous barrage of lightning bolts. It’s like they’ve become human conductors. The woman also joins the fight. She evades the stray lightning bolts, ducking, dodging, and even flipping.

  The Namika is so distracted by her that Kajo is able to tackle him off the building. The woman dives off headfirst after them.

  All three are gone from sight for a few moments, but I sense triumph in Kajo’s mind, so I know to brace for another death-shock. It comes with a window-shaking boom. The death of a Namika in his prime. Stories will be told world over.

  Kajo reappears, floating and carrying the strange woman. When they reach the roof, he releases her, and she tumbles nimbly to her feet. They rush over to me and climb into the car, where she takes the back seat. Kajo flies us away.