Song of the Sea Spirit: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles) (45 page)

Outside the realm of perception, Jora and Po Teng hiked unseen for a mile or so. It was challenging at first, not being able to feel her body move or the ground under her feet. Until she got used to the odd sensation of moving in the familiar rhythm of walking while guiding it from her Mindstream perspective behind and above her left shoulder, her steps were halting and clumsy. Soon, she learned to trust her body’s innate knowledge, and her gait smoothed out.

They stopped beside the first tent they came to. Men walked about, completely unaware of the strangers in their midst. She passed a soldier talking with another, somewhat older soldier with a single stripe on his arm band. Though she couldn’t hear them with her ears, she was aware in the Mindstreaming sense that they were arguing about right and wrong, about loyalty and treason.

Po Teng murmured, “Kaw-leng,” but Jora didn’t press him to explain. Only one thing was on her mind. She walked around the soldiers and up the step of the building in which the commander had been sitting. On her left was a command board. A man with one arm was posting a piece of paper there, and an adept was walking down a hallway.

Take precautions. She could be anywhere.

Jora smiled. So they’d anticipated she would come here to dispense justice. Little good their warning did.

She followed the adept down the corridor to the room on the left and entered without knocking. He wouldn’t hear her anyway.

Turounce was sitting at his desk. The adept opposite, hood down, was pacing. Boden’s journal sat on the desk, though it had been set aside. The transcribed pages poked out from under the cover. A large, reddish-brown stain on the floor sent a shudder through her. It looked like someone had met his end there in that very room.

For a moment, she considered giving Turounce a chance to explain himself, but that was more consideration than he deserved. The people of Kaild hadn’t been given a chance to beg for their lives or to hear an explanation for why they were about to be massacred.

“Po Teng, kill him.”

Po Teng looked at her guiltily, lifting his arms as if in a shrug.

“What’s wrong? Can’t you leave the ’twixt without me?”

He shook his head.

All right, then. Turounce would see who was responsible for his death. Jora entered the realm of perception, accompanied by Po Teng.

“...on his way now—” the Truth Sayer said.

Both men startled at the sudden appearance of the woman and the tree-like creature in the room. Po Teng touched Turounce’s arm. The commander’s skin paled, and he froze in place, mouth still open in shock. His lips and tongue turned a sickly gray.

Jora felt a flood of relief, guilt, horror, and satisfaction. She wished she didn’t have to be the one to carry out the death sentence, but it was what he deserved. He and the men who conspired to murder her people.

The Truth Sayer, an adept, took a step backward and put his hands up defensively. “N-Novice J-Jora?”

She held up one finger as a warning. “Call for help, Adept, and you’ll get what he got.”

The adept shook his head.

“I didn’t come to kill you,” she said. “Only the man who ordered the deaths of my family, friends, and neighbors in Kaild. If you attack me or call for the soldiers, I’ll have to defend myself.”

“I won’t.” The adept took another step back to prove it. “I won’t.”

“You might want to lie down so you don’t awaken with a bruise.”

“W-What?”

“You’re going to take a nap. I don’t want you calling for help the second I leave. Don’t worry. You’ll awaken none the worse for wear.”

The adept settled onto the floor, stretched out on his back with his fingers laced over his belly. He glared at her indignantly. “In the end, justice will prevail.”

With Po Teng’s touch, the adept fell fast asleep and snored softly.

“You’re right, Adept. Justice will prevail. I’ll see to it.”

Footsteps approached. Two pairs, from the sound of it. The two soldiers she’d passed earlier entered and stopped short, surprise on their faces.

“Make them sleep, Po Teng,” she said.

The one with the striped arm band went down first, collapsing into a heap. “Kaw-leng,” Po Teng said, hesitating.

Blinking hard, the soldier gaped at Po Teng. “God’s Challenger, that thing’s real?”

“Po Teng!” Jora said, urging him to sleep the second soldier.

Po Teng looked at her with pleading eyes. “Kaw-leng flengz.”

“Did it say Korlan?” the soldier asked. “Oh no. It’s happening. They’re coming for me.”

“Shhh! No one’s coming for you,” Jora said, motioning with her hands to try to calm him. “Po Teng, do you know him?”

The little tree-figure nodded. “Le-meh-pah.”

“How the hell does it know my name?” the soldier asked with a haunted look in his eyes.

Jora felt a mixture of trepidation and relief. If this was Boden’s friend, perhaps he could help her, but first he had to calm down so as not to draw attention to them. “He won’t hurt you. He was once your friend Boden. Apparently he remembers you.”

“That...” Korlan said, pointing at the nodding ally, “that’s Boden?”

“Yes. I call him Po Teng now.”

He stared wide-eyed at Po Teng, curiosity overcoming fear. “God’s Challenger. What the hell happened to you, brother?”

Jora smiled dimly. “It’s a long story.”

Korlan turned to her, surprise on his face. “Challenger’s fists! You must be Jora. I’ve heard all about you. It’s good to finally meet you. I’m Korlan.”

She shook his offered hand. “So I gathered.”

Korlan looked around. “So Turounce is dead? Good going, Bo—I mean, Po Teng. Serves the bastard right. How’d you get in here without being seen?”

“That’s a long story, too. I’d love to stay and chat, but we have to dash.”

“Um, any chance I could come with you? They were going to execute me.”

Po Teng nodded enthusiastically. “Kaw-leng come.”

“It’d be nice to have some companionship—human companionship, I mean, at least until you decide what you want to do. Being a deserter will make you a criminal.”

“Better than being dead,” he replied with a grim smile. “How are we going to manage to get away with all the soldiers around?” He unbuckled the sword from Turounce’s corpse and strapped it on.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said, winking at Po Teng. “We’ve got that covered. I have to warn you, though. The way out of here is going to be uncomfortable. You won’t be able to see or hear or feel anything, like having all your senses extinguished.”

“All right,” he said. “If I can handle dying and seeing... monsters, I can handle this.”

Jora held Korlan’s hand, and together they entered the ’twixt.

“Whoa,” Korlan said. “This is strange. Am I talking? Are you there? Jora?”

She sensed his rising panic and patted his arm to offer comfort, but immediately realized he wouldn’t have felt it any more than he would have heard a spoken word. Instead, she led him back to the helix. “I’m here. It’s all right. See what I mean?”

He looked around, wide-eyed. “Yah. I thought it would be... I don’t know. Not as scary. I couldn’t even feel my feet on the ground.”

“I know. It’ll take some getting used to. Recite something in your head to occupy your mind. Trust me. I’ll lead you out of here to safety.”

During the trip back up the coast to Jolver, Jora learned about Korlan and his friendship with Boden. She learned about the godfruit and how the soldiers were heavily pressured to eat it every morning so that if they fell in battle that day, they would relive to fight again. Her impression, from the way he talked about the godfruit in a hushed tone, was that the experience of being Relived wasn’t one he’d have wanted to repeat, even if it were possible.

“Boden was Relived,” she said under her breath, wondering whether his becoming an ally had anything to do with the godfruit.

“He was? Damn it.” He chewed his lip for a moment, eyes directed at his hands. “It was my fault. I saw some men smuggling godfruit and engaged them. Boden had to come to my aid and ended up killing two of them. Turounce was livid. Everyone could hear him shouting. He must’ve done it. He must’ve killed Boden.”

Jora felt sick. That blood stain on the floor. It had been Boden’s. She’d stood in the very room where her friend had first died. “Justice was served,” she said quietly. “Turounce has paid for his crimes.”

Korlan studied her for a moment. “You were a Truth Sayer. Why did you leave?”

She summarized the events of the last week, starting with the murder of Elder Kassyl and the theft of her two books and ending with learning how to command creatures that lived in the other helix.

“Like Po Teng?”

“Right. And the one pulling the dinghy. There are many others like him, each one different, each one... grotesque.”

Korlan nodded. “I know. When I died, I saw them.” He shuddered. “So Elder Sonnis wants to be able to summon them. Why?”

Jora shrugged. “I suppose so he can have more minions to kill people.”

“Why did you?”

It was a good question. “I needed to. Doing nothing to combat evil is the same as doing evil oneself.” She thought of Gunnar and his concern about whether killing could possibly serve the greater good.

“I’d have killed them, too, if I’d been you,” Korlan said. “They declared war on you and your people. How is it any different than Mangend declaring war on us?”

“The people of Kaild were defenseless. They were slaughtered in their sleep.”

He pressed his lips together and looked at her with compassion in his eyes. “You did the right thing.”

“I hope so,” Jora said. As much as she hated the notion of facing Sonnis alone, she didn’t want Korlan to think he had no choice for himself. “Listen, Korlan, this isn’t your battle. If you—”

“Don’t say it. I’m alive because of you. If we survive the coming day, then I’ll figure out where I want to go and what to do, but until then, my service is yours. We both have a better chance standing together.”

“I hate the thought of you sacrificing yourself for what I feel I must do.”

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of sacrificing myself. I’m here to help you get justice. That’s important to me, and I’ll be upset if you try to deny me that.” He squeezed her forearm. “Besides, I owe Boden. My rash actions on one fateful day ultimately got him killed, got your whole town killed, and changed your life forever. I have to do whatever it takes to set things right again.”

She smiled at him. “Boden was lucky to have you as a friend.”

“That’s debatable, but like it or not, good or bad, that luck is yours now.”

They continued sailing through the day, slipping into the ’twixt as needed to avoid being spotted by other ships. Korlan was an inquisitive fellow and wanted to know exactly what was happening during those times he was required to suffer the solitude of nothingness. Jora explained the best she could about the realm of perception.

“Think of it like a tube,” she said. “The inside of the tube is the realm of existence. Everything that exists is there—you, me, this boat, Aerta, and the sun and moon. Now imagine that inside the tube is a ladder. Each of the long sides is a realm of perception, what Sundancer calls a helix. That’s where we are right now, sitting on one side of that ladder.”

“What’s on the other side?” he asked.

“The other realm of perception, where I first found Po Teng and Zhokaw. The rungs of the ladder are the gateways that open at dawn and dusk every day. Those are the only times I can cross to bring one of them over.”

“But Po Teng can cross back and forth whenever you call him, can’t he?”

“No,” Jora said. “I think he’s stuck in the ’twixt now, waiting for me to invite him into our realm of perception—our side of the ladder. I’m new to all this, too, so I might have it wrong. The more tones from Elder Kassyl’s book I translate, the more I’ll know.”