This chapter came relatively fast, for me. And now I'm getting to what I actually want to write, not those awful bits of rubbish that set up the story. You should all be grateful, I have an exam in like, 20 minutes.
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Chapter 6: Arity
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It was hard to tell if he was awake or not. The darkness continued, endless. Yet now, now he could feel again, and he didn't feel well at all. His muscles ached dully, and his thoughts swam through a thick soup. Light shimmered beyond his closed eyelids, and he felt a stab of fear, that the light might have been it again.
But Ivan was not going to just lie there, in goodness knows what state, forever. He forced himself to open his eyes, and instantly wished he hadn't. Dim as the lights were, they hurt his vision. Shutting his eyes again, Ivan tried to sort out what he'd seen. It was quite difficult, as he'd only gotten an impression of colour and light. He resigned himself to sore eyes, and opened them again.
After the initial confusion of light and dark had righted itself, he gazed around. His head was tilted to the side, giving him full view of a small fireplace, which had a decent blaze going. Finding the dancing flames a bit too much for his poor vision, he turned away from the fire. There was a roughly cut wooden table, and a couple of chairs to his left, with various jars and utensils on it. Nothing unusual. The walls were made of tightly fitting planks, and judging by their closeness it was quite a small room. Beyond the table, there was a dark opening into another room. Try as he might, Ivan couldn't make head nor tail of what might be in there. Sighing, he turned right. And froze.
A girl was sitting on a stool, staring at him intently. Ivan couldn't believe he hadn't noticed her before; his instincts were failing him today.
Noticing that he'd noticed her, the girl straightened up. "You're awake. That's good."
Ivan's tired mind was not cooperating, so he said nothing. Getting a more thorough look at her, he could see that she really wasn't a girl. She could only be a year older than he, at the most. She was dressed in a simple tunic, and her blonde hair looked red in the firelight. She gave him another look. He felt uneasy, and it wasn't just because of being in a house with a stranger.
"Are you mute?" Ivan was startled enough this time to answer.
"Oh. No, I'm not."
"Well, that's good I suppose." She tilted her head a bit, still looking at him. "Do you know what happened to you?"
Ivan bit his lip, then squirmed around till he was in a sitting position. He ignored the tiny stabbing pains that erupted through his muscles, and turned his thoughts to her question. To his surprise, he couldn't quite remember what had happened. Oh, he knew he had the information in his head somewhere, but at the moment it was all out of order. The last thing he clearly remembered doing was arguing with the others over whether he should touch the barrier or not.
"Not really," he mumbled absently. The girl looked a bit dismayed by this.
"I'm afraid I can't really help your much more without knowing more about what happened to you. Your. . .injury isn't known to me." She smiled wanly. "Although, I never was much good at healing."
Feeling a little uncomfortable, Ivan tried even harder to remember what happened. But his thoughts kept getting interrupted by his other thought: what injury was she talking about? As far as he could feel, he still had all his arms and legs intact, and he thought he'd know about any broken bones or monstrous gashes.
A slight scraping brought Ivan back to reality. The girl had left her seat and was coming around to his side of the bed. Kneeling down, she reached out and touched her fingers to his left temple. This reminded him so vividly of Mia when she healed Psynergy afflictions that he had to force himself not to pull back. He stared apprehensively at her as she brought her other hand around to his right temple, and shut her eyes.
Warning bells started going off at the back of his mind. Something about what she was doing was vaguely familiar in another way.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes again, and now Ivan could see that they were a mossy-sort of green. She gave him a long, searching look.
"You're a seer."
He knew then what she'd been doing. Scanning for Psynergy. He turned away from her hard stare. Why hadn't he been able to feel her searching?
"Yes. And so are you, I see."
"More so than you, at the moment." Ivan looked puzzled, and seeing his look she went on. "Haven't you noticed that your Psynergy has virtually vanished? It was only by doing a Psynergy sweep on you just now that I could tell, and even then I only found traces of energy in your system. Otherwise, you're completely empty of Psynergy."
Ivan realised with a shock that she was right. The vague feeling of disquiet that had been with him since he woke up was because he was missing such an important part of himself. He hadn't thought that he'd ever be without it; even when he was extremely low on energy he could still feel its essence deep in his centre. It was like something had died inside him, and he'd only just become aware of it.
A jittery panic started rising in his stomach, but Ivan crushed it ruthlessly. He would not lose his head. He couldn't afford to. Instead, he pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. If he wasn't going to have a total breakdown, he could at least be pitiful while he was sane.
Worse, was the stabbing pain of being alone with a stranger. Where were the others? Mia, Garet, Isaac? Had they left him with her? Did they get blown away as well?
Where they all dead?
Without noticing he began to shake a little. He couldn't go on if they were gone. Hardly a year he'd spent with them, yet those three people were closer to him than anyone else he'd ever known. Perhaps, if Ivan had known his parents, that might not be true. But the thought of being so dreadfully alone in a strange place was terrifying.
No. He furiously pushed those thoughts away. No, he wouldn't think like that. He wouldn't be so pessimistic. Taking in some calming breaths, he got himself under control once more.
Ivan looked up again to find the girl still watching him. She seemed to have been waiting for him to get himself together again. There was something about her that seemed used to dealing with people all the time.
Suddenly she looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry. My name's Arity." Ivan hadn't even realised until then that he didn't know her name. He'd been too focussed on his own grief.
"My name's Ivan."
"Well, Ivan," Arity said, standing up. "I suggest you get your stuff together. We're leaving."
He stared at her. "Leaving? We?"
"Yes. Now that you're conscious, it's best that we leave this place." Before he could ask another question, Arity had disappeared into the other room.
Feeling extremely confused, Ivan glanced around and found his other clothes and gear beside the bed. Flipping the sheets off him, he swung his legs down onto the floor. Ignoring the stubborn pain in his muscles he started pulling his cloak back on. He felt irritated that this Arity was bossing him around like he was an ignorant child. Sure, he wasn't the most mature of men, but he certainly wasn't a little kid anymore. He was that indistinct age between boyhood and manhood: not quite in either world.
Whilst Ivan was wrestling his boots onto his feet, he had a thought. "Um, excuse me," he called out towards the door. "Do you know where my sword is?"
After a few seconds, "It's under the table."
Finished with his clothes, he dropped down onto his knees beside the wooden table. Underneath he found his waist pack, sword and small dagger. He retrieved them, and strapped the pack back on. He was in the process of attaching his swords' sheath when Arity came back into the room.
In the short time she'd been gone she'd completely changed her outfit. Instead of the plain clothes from before, she had a grey cloak fastened over a sleeveless leather vest. A sturdy belt, probably for holding swordsheaths, was buckled around the waist. There was a length of material halfway around under the belt, something like a half-skirt. Travel-worn boots came up to mid-calf, where the longer pants were stuffed in. A travelling pack was dumped onto the table, whilst she dug through a cupboard. Seconds later, she'd pulled out a jumble of objects. Arity picked up the gauntlets and shoved them on rougly, then snatched a metal headband off the table. It was a polished silver-metal band, half a circle, with two small spiked wings at each end. She pushed it into her hair at the top of her head, then reached for the last object on the table.
It was like no other sword that Ivan had seen, and he'd seen a fair variety on his travels. For the most part, it was simply a very average, if not lethal, looking sword. The blade was certainly impressive, being longer than her arm by a goodly distance, and sharpened to a razor's edge. But that wasn't what was interesting about the sword. Between the leather-wrapped hilt and the blade, the guard was splayed out massively, into what looked like serrated metal wings on either side of the blade. Whilst it was rounded and smooth near the handle, further out and up there were a number of sharp 'feathers', which curved around and ended a third of the way up the main blade. It was a nasty looking thing in anyone's language, and Ivan pitied the poor soul who had the sword pushed in far enough to get a taste of the wings as well.
He certainly now understood what the extra material around Arity's waist was for.
Having slid the sword into its' sheath, Arity looked up and saw Ivan staring at the blade. She smiled faintly, and said, "It has that effect on most people." Then the smile was gone. "We have to leave now. You're ready?" He nodded, though he still didn't know what was going on.
In a blink she'd strode over to the door again and gone through. Ivan took it as a given that he was expected to follow, and he did so. Barely noticing what the room was for, he headed for the new door at the other side, where pale light was coming through.
Ivan took three steps out of the door, then stopped dead.
It was a nightmare of ruined homes. Charred wood and stone lay scattered with wild abandon over the rough dirt roads. There was smoke billowing into the sky from spots all around, though it looked like little was still burning. To his left, a creaking piece of timber snapped and fell to the ground with a dull thump on what had been a doorstep. But far more horrifying was the carnage. Men, women and children lay dead in the streets of this village. It was obvious that they were no warrior people; whoever had done this had met no resistance. Ivan felt sick as he saw a young girl, no more than three, lying in her mother's arms, with a shocking wound in her small chest.
Unable to look anymore, he turned away, only to find Arity staring out at the scene. She had the look that he'd seen Isaac wear so often: the look of someone who was hiding what they truly felt. But her eyes were alive with anger.
Suddenly, she started walking away at a fast pace, in the direction of the mountains. Startled out of his reverie, Ivan had to jog to catch up. Even when he had, he needed to work hard to keep up to her. She seemed determined to go as fast as possible, wherever it was she was going. Having no idea where he was anyway, Ivan had no choice but to follow her. But he wasn't going to just go anywhere without knowing why. Plus, he had somewhere he needed to go. The only place he could think of that could give him the answer to what happened to the others. The centre of the island, where the lightning had retreated.
~*~
It had been three long hours, and the shadows across the plains were lengthening, and they hadn't spoken a word. Ivan had settled into a dull monotonous pattern of walking. His mind was full of tired static; he'd spent the lonely time trying desperately to retrieve any trace of Psynergy to himself. All he'd managed to do was work up a terrible headache, which wasn't helping things at all. He'd settled into a gloom, having come to terms with the fact that his Psynergy was indeed gone. Possibly never to return. He hadn't yet come to terms with that idea. He didn't want to even contemplate it.
Reaching up his arm to flick his hair away from his eyes for the umpteenth time, Ivan vaguely took note of where they where. For all intents and purposes, they seemed to be heading towards mountains. However, he didn't know if those were the same mountains that he had viewed from the seashore with his friends, or some totally different ranges. For all he knew, he wasn't even on the same landmass anymore.
He glanced over towards Arity. The woman hadn't stopped for a rest even once, and seemed to be set to march all night long as well. He was dreading that, and had half a mind to stop completely once it got dark. Whether she noticed or not. He was so tired that it didn't matter to him any longer.
Halfway through a yawn, Ivan noticed that Arity had dropped back to be walking level with him. She was probably fed up with him going so slow. Maybe she'd start spearing him with that awful sword –
"I suppose you don't know what's going on." Ivan gave a derisive snort in response. "Alright fine. Stay ignorant."
"No, no. I'd like to know, really. I'm just . . . annoyed."
"With what?"
"Oh, I'm not sure. Waking up in a strange house, with a strange girl, in a town that's been massacred by goodness knows what, then walking an ungodly long distance without even a rest: I don't think there's much to complain about. Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed." If there was one thing that Ivan's companions had noticed about him, it was that when he was tired he worked up quite a sarcastic vocabulary.
She looked at him sideways, then turned her attention back ahead. "Would you have preferred being awake for the massacre?" Ivan couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he said nothing. She sighed slightly. "Sorry. I just didn't think it was much good staying there any longer. I also thought it would be good to be far away in case they returned."
Ivan instantly wanted to know more, but figured it would be better to start at the beginning. "Where did you find me?"
"In a bush."
"Are you serious?"
"Quite. I was in the woods, looking for potion ingredients. And I heard something strange. It was not a usual forest sound, so I went to have a look. At which point I found you in a patch of shrubs, moaning and not generally looking too well. It seemed that the right thing to do would be to take you back to the house."
She stopped talking then. Ivan was severely annoyed that the story 'ended' there. Just as he was about to snap at her, she stopped completely and faced him.
"Why did you touch the barrier?"
Once again, Ivan was shocked speechless. Then his mind regained some composure. "How did you –"
"What else could take your power?" Fair enough, Ivan thought. "What concerns me, is the very fact that it did take your Psynergy from you. It should not have."
"But then, how could you assume I'd touched the barrier?"
"Because touching the barrier revokes the powers of adepts who aren't of the air element." Ivan stared at her in disbelief. Seeing this, Arity returned his look with one of slight annoyance. "I've been through the barrier myself many times, and because I'm of the air it doesn't disturb me."
Sinking into thought, Ivan tried to recollect the events in front of the shimmering wall. They'd fought over it, and he – feeling useless – had volunteered to touch it. His friends had flat out refused, but he'd done it anyway. He remembered plunging his arm into it the first time, and it hadn't been terrible or painful. In fact, it was just like shoving your arm into thin air, except this air was vibrant and bright. After that. . .
"Oh no," he groaned, bringing both hands up to rake his hair. "It was the others." Arity gave him a questioning look. He glanced at her and decided to elaborate. "I didn't go through the barrier alone. I was with," he paused with a tinge of depression, "my friends. They aren't Jupiter adepts. It must have been that. I thought that if they held onto me, we could get through all right." He was shivering, but not from the cold. It's all your fault, it's all because of you. . .
"Listen," Arity's flat tone broke through his self-induced agony, "I can only assume you aren't from around here. Because all the adepts in this place know about the barrier. Even the one's on the outer side. Where do you come from?"
"Angara," he said listlessly. "We came on a ship."
"I don't know this place."
"No. . . I don't suppose you would."
"You're tired, aren't you?"
"Yes, yes I am!" Ivan snapped suddenly, and half-yelling at her. "And if we don't stop and make camp now, I'll . . . well, I'll do it anyway." And with that, he stopped, and dropped his pack to the ground. In a bit of a rage he set about breaking branches off a dead tree, with the vague idea that he could make a fire, but mainly just to break something. He grinned a bit sadly; this was how Garet would make his feelings known, not him.
Having thrown himself into the 'gathering' of firewood, Ivan hadn't bothered to notice what Arity might be doing. Not that he cared. The woman was an enigma and an annoyance.
Spinning around to drop another poor tree's arm in the pile, he was met with the sight of a small fire. Behind it stood Arity, arms crossed and apparently waiting for him to be finished. Getting a surge of irrational anger once more, Ivan heaved the pile of firewood up and dropped it closer to the blaze. He didn't realise his face was red, and neither would he have noticed. It was completely dark by now, and the moon had yet to rise.
Finished with the firewood, Ivan sat down heavily and started tearing through his pack. He'd only just realised how hungry he was. He had no idea how long he'd been unconscious, and of course Arity hadn't told him. Finding a jar of waybread, he pulled off the lid only to be disappointed. There were only two pieces left. He sighed and dug one out.
As he bit into the stale bread, he let his mind lapse into an unsteady calm. There was no point getting moody. He was more exhausted than he had ever felt, and that was making his judgement lax. Dimly he was aware of Arity getting food from her own pack, but he didn't care. He finished off the bread, and returned the jar to his pack. Putting his cloak on the ground, he rolled over on to it.
Without so much as a word of 'goodnight', he fell asleep.
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Yes, I'm evil, I introduced an original character. I hope the purists don't kill me. And I full-on promise to do the next chapter on Mia's point of view.
27/04/03 - Fixed some errors