Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) (15 page)

Tora sighed. “Long story short, we got lost. What happened?”

“Nothing really,” London said, brushing past them and into the tunnel.

“Oh. For a moment there, it looked like you fell,” Kim said with a chuckle.

London glanced back over a shoulder at them. “I did.”

The main room glowed warmly with candlelight up ahead and she found her way to an empty chair and sat down nonchalantly. Kim circled round in front of her. “What do you mean,
you did
? We just saw you, you’re fine.”

By now, everyone had filed into the room and Elias was laying a spread of honey, biscuits and goat cheese on a nearby table. He caught her eye and smiled. London took a deep breath, raised her shoulders and said simply, “Elias saved me.”

They all looked at the odd man in his tattered tunic shirt and airy pants. “Thank you, Elias,” Tora said. “Truly.”

“Yeah, good catch,” Kim added in a cheery tone.

Elias nodded and looked again at London. His eyes seemed to press her to say more. She huffed. “It wasn’t a catch exactly. More like a…a good landing.”

Kim crammed a biscuit slathered in cheese and dripping with honey into his mouth all at once. Rendered speechless, he could only cock an eyebrow at London in question. Zen watched her too, but didn’t speak.

“Elias is…well, I don’t know exactly what he is,” London admitted aloud. “Sorry Elias,” she added in his direction. “But he’s Otherborn.”

Elias only grinned and spooned some honey onto his breakfast.

“Impossible,” Zen said, staring at the old man.

“It’s true. He created a rock ledge for me to land on right out of thin air. He uh—he warped.” London was gloating just a little to be able to inform Zen he was wrong, even if it wasn’t in reference to what she really believed he was wrong about: her intentions. She got up and moved toward the table to scope out something to eat.

“I don’t remember him from the grove. Hantu has never mentioned him. If he’s not one of the Circle, then he’s not Otherborn,” Zen countered with a dark glare at the Beekeeper.

“He has a point,” Kim added, having finally managed to chew and swallow his biscuit.

London turned to Elias in exasperation. “Tell them,” she demanded.

Zen stared at him now. “Yes, please. Enlighten us, Beekeeper,” he said, his voice hostile.

Kim crossed his arms. “This oughta be good.”

And Tora stepped forward, finally taking a seat at the table. “You really should have told us straightaway. Who are you? And how did you come to be here?”

Now Elias rose and put his hands out to quiet them. “Please, sit,” he gestured to London and she did. “I never told you because you never asked. I will do my best to explain my story, but I owe you nothing. You have come to me, remember?”

Zen started to argue but London kicked him hard in the shin and he shut up, shooting an angry look her way.

“Just begin with where you’re from,” London said to Elias. She was both relieved and terrified to know there was another Otherborn among them. Relieved not to be the only ones, but afraid to think how many more might be out there and what they might be capable of.

“Like you, my world, my
home
, is not this one,” Elias said, boring into each of them with his dark eyes. “But unlike you, my world is no more.”

“What do you mean?” Kim asked him. “Like, it’s gone?”

“I can never return home, because my home no longer exists. It was long ago taken over by invading forces. They were merciless. They murdered our queen and scattered my people to the four winds, picking us off as they pursued. I fled, in order to protect myself, to the only place I knew was beyond their reach.”

“To the Astral,” Tora guessed, her green eyes transfixed with Elias’s story.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“And then?” Zen prompted.

“I wandered for countless ages. Who can say how long I was there? In that place, time is but a trick of the mind. I was lost, a nomad of the planes.”

Elias’s face was long and sad in the candlelight and London truly felt for him. She could imagine what it must feel like…to lose everything. She’d lost so much, but compared to Elias, she still had much to lose.

“You mean, bodiless?” Kim asked him.

“Essentially,” Elias said. “I prefer,
untethered
.”

“What was it like?” London asked. “To be stuck there?” She thought of Hantu, once Degan, forever haunting the Midplane. Always waiting for them to show up, to be some company in an endless stream of Astral projection.

“It was desperate…lonely. Sometimes frightening. But I learned a lot and I cannot be sorry for it now. I spent enough time in the Astral to learn its ways and its secrets as I never would have otherwise. And I can teach you what I know.” Elias’s eyes cut a quick glance to London, then darted away.

“So how did you end up here,” Zen asked.

Elias smiled sagely. “Like you, I took a new host.”

London leaned in. “Yes, but how did you do it? You see, we…we can’t remember much.”

Elias nodded in understanding. “I caught a ride.”

“A ride?” Tora repeated.

“Yes. On an Astral tide.”

“A tide?” London questioned.

“A current of ether.” Elias said this as if it were plainly obvious, though to them, it was about as plain as a mismatched puzzle.

“A current…of ether,” Kim whispered, utterly confused.

“Okay, it’s official,” London piped up. “I’m lost.”

Elias packed up the cheese and screwed a lid on his jar of honey, which they’d put a sizeable dent in since arriving. But after seeing the colossal honeycomb he was hiding, London didn’t feel so bad about it.

Elias leaned on the table as he began to explain. “The Astral has many planes, countless. Infinite. And there are many ways to discover them. But at the center of them all is a kind of core. If you can find it, you can ride the current there, between planes…and worlds. ”

Kim’s eyes grew wide. Like London and Zen, he had only ever known of three.

“Not true,” Zen cut him off. “That’s utter bullshit and we all know it. There’re only three planes in the Astral and we’ve seen ‘em all. Nice try, bee man.”

Elias stood up slowly and crossed his arms over his chest, seeming suddenly more menacing and less benign than a moment earlier. “You are mistaken,” he said simply. “And if you don’t believe me, why not ask your friend?”

Elias cut his gaze to London and she looked away, wanting to suddenly crawl under the table.

“London?” Tora said.

“What is he talking about, London?” Zen asked through a tight jaw.

London pulled at her sleeves. “I was in the Astral last night.
We
were. Elias was with me and…he— he took me to a new plane.”

Everyone stared at her in disbelief, mouths hanging wide, slack–jawed and mute.

“Don’t look at me like that,” London defended herself with a scowl. “I only just figured it out myself. I didn’t have time to tell any of you.”

Tora turned on Zen. “You see, this is why you were supposed to stay with her. I don’t know what kind of hissy fit you had last night but it’s no excuse.”

Zen’s big shoulders knotted under his shirt. “Why are you blaming me? She did it! Now, suddenly it’s my fault?”

Tora rolled her eyes and looked back to London. She tucked her hair behind her ears. “London,” she said, serious and motherly, “you could have been hurt.”

London hung her head and crossed her arms. She knew Tora was right. And the truth was, she was hurt, but not in the way they meant. She shot Elias a calculating glare, praying he wouldn’t give away what they’d seen and heard on their little unsanctioned trip. “Look, let’s get back to the matter at hand. We are sitting here with a man who is Otherborn and knows how to ride Astral tides from one world or plane to the next. Don’t you think that is a bit more important than scolding me?” London made a show of turning herself to face Elias. “So, you’re rogue?”

“You could say that,” Elias agreed.

“Then how long have you been here?” Kim asked him.

Elias shrugged, his bony shoulders making sharp points under his tunic. “I cannot say for sure. I think—I think around 58 years.”

“Don’t you know?” Kim asked. “I mean, if you were born here like we were, you should know.”

Elias sighed. “I was abandoned very young. An Outroader found me and brought me to a camp outside Mulva City. They were never sure exactly how old I was when they found me.”

“Mulva City, where is that?” Kim asked, scrunching up his face as though he could recall hearing the name.

“Far north of here, then east…on the coast,” Elias said.

“Wow. How did you get this far from home?” Tora asked, picking off a piece of biscuit and putting it in her mouth.

“I was restless for many years. Unhappy, once I remembered who I really was. I set off looking for others like me, or even another who dreamed as I did, but my search only turned up more of the same. Eventually, I found my way here. And I settled, at last.”

Sounds familiar
, London thought and relaxed a little to know Elias hadn’t uncovered any other rogue Otherborns in their world. “So what’s up with the bees?” London blurted, unable to place them in Elias’s woeful tale.

“They follow me. We are kindred souls, they and I. They remind me of my real home and give me some small comfort.” Elias turned away to replace his honey and cheese in a freestanding cabinet. “They make it possible for me to earn my keep. That, and the Oracle.”

Now London was beginning to understand how Elias managed to remain so well kept in spite of the fact that he unnerved the Outroaders and wasn’t permitted farther than the fringes of their camp. After a few spoonfuls of honey, she was pretty sure she would have tolerated an ax murderer in her camp if he kept her supplied in the golden, sticky-sweet potion.

Elias had spoken of having a queen. He slept with the bees and they followed him. He appeared as one of them in the Astral. She hated to state the obvious, but it seemed to her like he might have been some kind of bee-being in his own world. The whole thing gave her the willies. Maybe that’s why she sensed something was so off about him right from the start. At least Si’dah was bipedal and humanoid. Maybe the farther from human your original self was, the harder it would be to adjust to this new skin. Among them, Kim’s Other, Atel, was probably the weirdest—some kind of tree-man. London spared a glance at Kim, who was trying to hang the honey spoon off his nose. Obviously, she was on to something.

But Elias had saved her life, he was putting them up when they had nowhere to go, and he’d led her to a vital piece of the puzzle she was missing when he taught her how to find the Astral plane where Rye and Avery were meeting. So she figured, whatever he was, however creepy, she could accept him. After all, being Otherborn was odd enough in this world. She wasn’t really in a position to judge.

A SUDDEN KNOCK at the door startled everyone. Everyone except Elias. He made his way to the door Ash had locked from the outside and rapped back with his wiry knuckles. London heard the distinct sound of a lock giving way. She looked at Tora.

Ash?
She asked with her eyes, but Tora only shrugged.

Last night, London would have given anything to get out of there and away from Elias, but today had changed things. They needed more time. Elias had so much he could teach them and they needed his help. What were the other planes like? How does one catch an Astral tide? Could he help Hantu escape the Midplane? Could he teach her how to warp as well as he did? And more importantly, and privately, how did he know about Rye and Avery and why did he show her?

But before she could get a word of any of this out, the door was swinging open and Ash was stepping inside, a machete in one hand, flanked by an armed man, two women, and a small burro saddled with a heavy pack.

“Delivery,” Ash called as he entered. He dipped his head toward Elias and looked round at London and the others. “Sleep well?” he asked her.

London shot him a smug expression. “Why didn’t you tell us you were leaving us here?”

“Does it matter?” he answered as Elias dashed back down another hallway and emerged with arms laden with full jars of honey. One of the women was unloading one side of the burro’s canvas saddle bag and handing the contents to another woman who brought them inside.

London ignored Ash and watched the women work. They were both middle-aged with dusty skin. The one doing the unloading had dazzling aqua eyes and her hair was pulled up into a maroon head wrap. She glanced at London, then quickly looked away.

“My wife,” Ash commented. “And her sister.”

“Hello,” Tora said to them in a friendly tone, but the women wouldn’t reply.

Shy?
London wondered.
Or scared?

The smell of the burro filled the little room with the odor of sweat and dung. When all the contents of its pack were on Elias’s table, he began to hand off his jars of honey, which the ladies quickly put away into the now empty saddlebags. Elias counted out loud as he worked, “Fours crocks of cheese, a basket of flat bread, two small jars of desert jam, and a fresh cask of water…five honey pots. No more.”

Ash turned from studying London and her friends, particularly Zen, who was standing near the fireplace with an expression of barely concealed rage on his face, to Elias upon hearing this. “Now Elias, let’s don’t get stingy. That jam is worth four pots alone.”

Elias squinted his yellowing eyes at Ash. “No more.”

“It would be a pity,” Ash began, tapping the machete against his leg “to have to go back on our arrangement.” Behind him, the guard tensed on his gun.

“What arrangement?” London blurted. “That you’re keeping him prisoner here? Like us?”

Ash gave her a stern expression and pulled at his pale mustache. “Elias and I have a deal, whatever you might think. And you all are coming with me.”

“Why?” Tora asked. “Where are we going?”

Ash stared at her a moment before answering. “Outside. Your time is up. You’re about to be turned loose, outside Mesa Camp.” He gestured to his guard who trotted over and pulled Tora’s arms behind her back.