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Chapter Two

At the wharf, Aruin turned into a green snake, and draped himself around Ariu's neck, as she walked around. The water was ugly down here. The inner city was ugly. The boats in the harbor were old, with peeling paint, or ripped sails. Shouts from the market a few streets over reached Ariu's ears. she heard the old woman shrieking, advertising their wares, to the people, most of whom would rather just go inside a store. Anyone who could afford it avoided the market like the plague. It was full of panhandlers and prostitutes, and all sorts of unpleasant persons.

Ariu hung around the docks for awhile, watching the boats floating on the water, dreaming about being a sailor, and floating away. She stayed until the sun's heat became unpleasantly warm. Then she walked back into the shadows below the tall buildings craning their necks into the sky.

Eventually, she saw a group of children she knew. They were mostly kids living on the streets, orphaned. Ariu had ran the streets with them when she was younger, but now that she was older, and attended school, while most of them couldn't even read, she tended to seek out the company of her friends from school. As much as she liked the girls she attended school with (Aaliyah and Ryanna were her best friends), there were some things that they could not understand. Especially Ryanna, who had grown up knowing her whole family, and living in a large house in the nicer, safer section of Gitslent. Once in a while, Ariu found the group of children she had known her whole life. She was smarter than them, and she knew it, but she was also their leader, so she did not have to hide her intelligence as much as she did with anyone else.

As Ariu approached the children, who all looked similar; the boys and the girls covered in dirt, with chopped haircuts, she raised her hand in greeting. The group was interchanging; children disapeared all of the time, and no one noticed, so why should they? And new children appeared often. The only rule was that you didn't tell any adult that sometimes they smoked cigarettes and joints and drank alcohol. Any child was welcome as long as they weren't too pathetic or horrible.

"Ariu," one girl said. Her name was Junie, and she was probably around the same age as Ariu, although she didn't know. She lived with her older brother, in back alleys, with no steady home, because her brother spent most of his time doing drugs and buying prostitutes, but Junie was perpetually happy. "Long time no see."

Ariu said nothing. She simply joined the group and nodded at the people who called out her name.

A boy named Jondor, who was taller than her, and hated her for some inexplicable reason shook his head. "Well," he said. "I'm surprised anyone remembers you!"

Ariu frowned and ignored his comment. Someone handed her a lit cigarette, and she put it in her mouth. "Thank you." She never inhaled, but let the smoke hang around her mouth, then fall out eventually. She saw what happened to people who smoked too often; it ruined thier voices. Ariu wanted to become a famous singer someday, so she tried to take good care of her voice. She drank a lot of water. It wasn't likely that she would achieve the sort of fame that would let her travel all over the world, touring, throwing celebrity parties, and having her music videos on TV. She had yet to see a famous singer with a daemon. Sometimes she resented the fact that she had magical powers, but if she didn't she would not have Aruin. And she would not give her daemon up for anything. She could not give him up. If she ever moved too far away from him, the pain coming from her heart and her soul overpowered her.

It was much more likely that Ariu would end up doing something with her magic when she was grown, never leaving Gitslent. Only people with special privledges were allowed to leave the cities they were born in. This included the monarchs, celebrities, magicians, and people who got permission from the queen or king whereever they lived. If people were allowed to freely come and go between cities, chaos would ensue. They had been allowed to come and go as they wished in the past, and the world have been overrun by cars and airplanes and war and pollution. Now technological devices were rarer, but the rich people still liked to flaunt their money by purchasing cars, and passes between cities. The police would never check a person in a car, anyway. They didn't need permission to leave, really. It was a system to keep the poor people from ever leaving, because they would overrun the world again.

Ariu only knew two people from Gitslent who had left. One was her friend Ryanna, who had family all over, and an immediate family with two cars. Every summer, her family left to visit relatives. The other person was her luma, Penny Sahren. Penny came from another kingdom entirely. Penny would not say much about her past, or why she had left. She had been banished many years ago, and could never go back. Her passport had words on it that said she could not leave Gitslent. She refused to say more, and started crying the time Ariu inquired about it. The daughter had never spoken much to her mother, but since she had begun to call her luma rather than mother, they tended to avoid each other.

"Luma" meant mother. It was the name for the High Goddess, and anyone who might be a mother. It was the word children called their grandmothers, or any elderly lady. Or any related woman who was older. It could also mean woman. Generally children did not call thier own mother's luma; it was impersonal, and a bit rude. But Ariu called Penny luma, so Lucy did as well. Penny did not say anything. She would rather have her daughters call her luma than Penny. And she knew she wasn't much of a mother.

Ariu was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice the way the children's conversation had turned until someone said the word magicians, until everyone stared at her.

"What?" she asked quietly, her mouth forming a surprised O.

"Is it true?" a small girl named Clare asked. "Is it true that only magicians can resist the Sickness?"

Ariu immediately knew what Clare was refering to. For the past year, a mysterious illness had been travelling across the world. It had originated from the high north, and only struck adults. No adults with the Sickness ever lived for more than a few days. It was transmitted through the air, and through any body fluid. It was not spreading very rapidly, because all of the cities where it had struck were locked. No one who was not related to the royal family could leave. So all adults in those cities, millions of people over the age of 18 had died. This left all of the children behind, with no way to get food.

Magicians went to the deserted cities, and tried to gather up all of the orphans who hadn't been killed by the cannibal children. The wizards and witches could resist the disease enough to not catch it through the air, but coming into contact with an infected body would kill them. Ariu had heard in school that there were so many people dead, because of the wizards. And many magicians were dying. When they left one city and moved to the next, they spread the disease. Lately, not many people were attempting to rescue the children.

Ariu started to nod, then realized that it wasn't true. "No. Any person with a daemon is harder to infect." Ariu had never thought about it that way. Only people with daemons were accepted into magic school, but they still taught magic from the very beginning. Shouldn't people with daemons, who naturally had magic not need to learn things like how tap into their magic ability? And if she herself naturally had magical powers from Aruin, shouldn't anyone who had a daemon be able to do magic? Especially because she had been able to do small amounts of magic before attending school, when they told her she would learn so much, only now she couldn't even bend a spoon. A chill ran through her body. She knew she had realized something, but she wasn't sure what it really was, or if it was important. She shook off the feeling that she had discovered a conspiracy.

All eyes landed on Aruin. Aruin flicked his tongue at them.

"That's not true!" Junie exclaimed.

"Of course it is," said Ariu calmly. What could Junie know about daemons? She didn't have one! Junie looked frusterated, but didn't continue. Ariu remembered that Junie's brother had a daemon, and said, "What do you mean?"

"My brother caught the Sickness, when he escaped from Gitslent, and went to Helmeso. They summoned me to the hospital where they've got him. It's not actually so far. Only a couple hours of driving. Anyway, Gordon was there, in the hospital, but Leslie wasn't. They said when a person with a daemon catches the sickness, their daemon disappears, and the person is left without a daemon. That person becomes only a half person. They act kinda like a ghost or something. My brother was crying for Leslie. I'd never seen him cry afore. Then they took me home, and dropped me off outside the city. I had to walk to my aunt's house. She hates me too," Junie explained.

Ariu stared, open-mouthed at Junie. That couldn't be true, could it? But Junie didn't lie. Why hadn't her school told anyone that, before asking if any of the graduates wanted to work as a reliefer?

Clare laughed. "So now they're all like everyone else? I don't see why they should act so differently because they don't have a little talking animal with them."

At the same time, Ariu, Jondor, and Junie glared at her and said, "You don't understand!"

Junie clarified, "I think Gordon's daemon was a part of him. When she was gone, it was like he really wasn't a real person. Like Leslie was his soul." Clare raised her eyebrows.

Ariu continued, "If you're too thick to get that, Clare, think of it as though it's your identical twin, only you can share thoughts, and it's the one person who understands you completely, and the one person you can say anything to at all. They've been at you side you entire life. Then one day, they're gone."

Clare looked down at the ground, a bit ashamed.

"Imagine that you have your arms one day, and the next, you wake up, and they're gone completely. And you don't know where to find them, or how to manage, because they've always been there. That must be what losing a daemon is like," Jondor said. His daemon was curled in his arms as a small dog.

Ariu looked down, and realized she was clenching Aruin in the form of a large cat. She noticed the irony of it. Even when agreeing, she and Jondor were opposites.

The topic of conversation changed, and Ariu soon excused herself to go get something for dinner.

She heading out of the marketplace, carrying two small cakes, and several apples, when it it her.

Gordon had been in Helmeso. The closest city to Gitslent. The Sickness was right around the corner. She stopped dead, filled with dread, and wondered if she should tell Penny. It was contracted through all body fluids. And her luma came into contact with quite a lot of them.

Finally, Ariu let out a long breath, and began to walk toward the building she lived in. There was nothing she could do about it.

As they walked, Aruin said, "They want something from us."

Ariu looked at him. "Who?"

He shook his head. "Whoever it is that decided that all people with daemons have magic, but ONLY if they attend magic school."

"We had magic before we went to school," Ariu said quietly, suddenly terrified that someone was listening over her shoulder.

"I know! They (I'm assuming they is the government), don't want people with daemons to have magic. So they tell them they need a special education. And people believe that!"

"But why don't they want anyone to have magic?" Ariu asked.

"Because," her daemon replied, "if a portion of the population of each city has people with magic, who aren't taught all the rules and consequences, they might overthrow the king or queen's rule. So they let a few people into school."

"Well then, why teach anyone magic?"

"They want something from us," Aruin said somberly.

Ariu drew in a breath slowly. "Oh. I don't trust royalty-type people. They want the whole world to bend to their will, and we have to. Because they want us to worship them like we honor the Goddesses."

They were approaching their block. Ariu hurried her step, and the cougar-formed Aruin walked beside her. She had long ago realized that it was better to have Aruin in a big form this late, when the sun would be setting if the day were clearer. But lately, the sun would just suddenly be gone between one minute and the next.

"So what do we do about it?" Ariu asked.

"About what?"

"You know. Everything."

"Nothing. What can we do?"

Ariu sighed. "We can't just do--"

They rounded the corner, and stood staring, wide-eyed, open-mouthed at the building they had lived in their whole lives. Ariu broke into a sprint, and made it several steps, before collapsing on the ground, sobbing, staring up, up, up. All the way up to the 31st floor. She had to see her apartment. But she couldn't it was too far away, or the air was too grey.

She stood up and moved again forward, and promptly fainted from shock.

Thanks.