Chapter Seventeen
But Hali was not alone. Mere feet away from Hali in her bed, Sage had been in his own room, carefully hiding any evidence of the night he had spent reading a terrifying journal. If not for the simple fact that Sage was so bitterly accustomed to people of frightening power and mystery, he would have judgmentally condemned her to being another paranoid schizophrenic or doomsday crier caught up in some drug induced fantasy life. But he knew better. Oh yes. He knew all too well the reality of the words she had written.
Ever so silently and carefully Sage moved about his bed removing each and every scrap of torn paper and flecks of dried mud from his pillows and covers. After replacing the notebook in its place between his box spring and mattress, he pulled back the covers to crawl into bed. Propping one knee on the bed and reaching to rearrange his pillows, the slightest sound of creaking floorboards from Hali's bedroom froze him in his tracks. Though a painfully unbalanced position, Sage dared not move for fear of attracting her attention.
Heart pounding and mind racing, Sage wondered frantically how long she had been awake. Even more frighteningly, he wondered what had woken her. He had been so intent on the journal that he had failed to pay attention to anyone waking within the house. Had Rowen woken her? Could she have been psychically listening to them the whole time? Holding his breath, Sage ran a thousand questions through his mind while also considering what she was capable of if angered.
But as he listened intently, straining to hear above the pounding of his own heart, he closed his eyes to concentrate. Knowing she could easily sense him and his powers, he dared not use them at such a delicate moment. His fears rose to a peak as her door opened and shut with barely a whisper of sound. On the verge of rushing out the window, Sage fought against the urge to run or warn the others as the footsteps began to move stealthily down the hall. Panicked, Sage opened his mouth to shout loud enough to wake the others. Just as quickly, though, he snapped it shut with an audible clicking of teeth as he heard the familiar creaking of the top step on the staircase.
The breath he had been unconsciously holding the entire time released itself in a rush of relief. Weak with the release of such tension throughout his body, Sage collapsed quietly onto his bed. But, almost the same instant he began to smile ruefully to himself, he froze once more. His unbound curiosity took over once more as he began to wonder where she was headed. Even Sai hadn't woken up yet and she was already on the move. Unable to withstand the damnable curiosity, he carefully moved to crack the door just enough to hear where she had moved to. After several seconds he still heard nothing. If she had been going for coffee he would have already heard her moving around the kitchen in the silent, sleeping house.
Brows furrowing slightly with mixed curiosity and dislike for spying, he glided swiftly out his door and down the hall to the top of the staircase. Knowing the house quite well, it took almost no effort to avoid any loose boards as he made his way slowly, stealthily down the top few stairs. Crouching low, he froze as he reached the halfway point. For it was from this vantage point that he now saw the shadowy figure of Hali standing mere feet away from Rowen lying still and silent upon the sofa in a mass of blankets. Knowing full well that a sleeping Rowen would be hopelessly tangled in his blanket within minutes of falling into the still void of sleep, Sage marveled at how well his friend seemed to fake sleep under the scrutinizing eyes of their mysteriously dark friend.
But Sage knew there was no hope for either him or Rowen. Just by the stillness with which Hali stood unmoving, he could tell that she could easily discover Rowen's ploy. Even without the use of his psychic ability, Sage could tell that his friend's breathing was too steady, too rapid by a fraction to actually be asleep. Patiently, fearfully, Sage waited for Hali to turn her enchantingly multicolored eyes filled with suspicion—or wicked intent—on him. He waited for her terrifyingly deadly whisper of a voice to speak to him through the darkness with which she seemed so perfectly a part of in every way.
Holding his breath once more, he waited…and waited. Unable to move or even speak, he knew there was no hiding the suspicion or fear with which he regarded her. There was no fighting one with so much power. If he ever were to truly turn against him or the others, he felt with deadly certainty that fighting her would be suicide.
As if coming out of his guilty, fear-consumed trance, Sage suddenly realized that he had felt all of these dooming thoughts of destruction and fear because his psychic senses were wide open. Worse, he realized that the tension and distraction he had felt had sent them unconsciously probing Hali's mind. And, what he sensed, all but made him laugh in relief. But it would have been a laugh mixed with terrifying comprehension of the depth of power she held. Beyond his simple psychic senses, he knew that for all the seemingly boundless power he now sensed, it was by far no where near the fullest extent of what she held.
Vaguely he wondered if she even knew the full extent of her power. Along with this thought came the disturbingly amusing memory of having called her a visiting goddess on this world many times in the days of their early courtship. Now his brows furrowed as he felt both the hysterical laughter of the memory rising as well as the cold knowledge that his compliments and wooing may have been closer to the truth than he would like to admit. For just an instant he—
Just then his thoughts were interrupted by the unexpected movement of the almost unseen figure of blackness he now spied upon. If not for the ghostly white hair and skin, he might not have seen her at all in the seemingly total darkness before the dawn. Still probing her, he could easily tell that while she had shielded herself from outside influence or senses, she had not shielded the core of her being. Though she could not feel him, he could feel her. Even as she moved slowly, purposefully toward the door, Sage cocked his head in curiosity. She neither had shoes or a jacket, but she was going outside. More disturbingly, she seemed completely disconnected from her consciousness. It was as though she had sealed her conscious mind and heart away in a place deep within herself where it could roam freely while her body moved solely upon the seemingly whimsical bidding of her sub-conscious mind. What or whom her sub-conscious now spoke about or drew her to, Sage couldn't tell right off hand. Nor did he dare probe further for fear of attracting her notice.
But as the door closed quietly behind her, he began to move ever so softly down to stairs. Even as he reached the last few steps, he noticed Hali simply standing motionless on the porch looking vacantly out upon the land. Keeping his psychic senses entirely on her, he moved closer to the sofa where his friend lay. With a violent start Rowen rolled over reflexively about to cry out to the others. His terror stricken eyes widened ever further as a hand with snake-like speed and accuracy clamped down over his mouth to silence him. Thrashing wildly for the space of a heartbeat, he fought to escape Hali, knowing now that the opening and closing of the door had been nothing more than a trick to calm his fearful heart.
"Rowen. Stop. It's Sage," his friend's whispering hiss penetrated his fear clouded mind and actions.
Relaxing instantly into the cushions of the sofa, Rowen closed his eyes and breathed deeply in relief. He was about to speak to the ghostly pale image of his friend framed in the darkness above him when the hand came down over his mouth once more. He listened carefully as the warmth of Sage's almost inaudible breath upon his ear sent chills down his neck and arms.
"She right outside the door just standing there. Keep it down," he whispered.
Nodding that he understood, Rowen watched silently as Sage knelt carefully on the floor beside him so as to be out of sight of the front door.
"You nearly scared me to death, Sage. What the hell are you doing?" Rowen whispered sharply into his friend's ear.
"I'm following her. What's got you so scared?" he asked wondering why he had even bothered to ask since he already knew the answer.
For a moment Rowen hesitated before responding. "I don't know. For some reason I just felt like I should be mortally terrified just being near her. That, and I felt like a kid being busted doing something they shouldn't."
Grinning slightly, Sage understood. "That was probably my fear you were picking up on. And I know what you mean by guilt."
Rowen eyed his friend uncertainly through the darkness. In all the years he and Sage had been such close friends, it was not uncommon for them to pick-up on the other's thoughts and feelings, but Sage was the only one of the two that was truly psychic and actually felt the emotions of the other. Not only had Rowen picked-up on his friend's emotions, but he had shared them as though they had been his own. Even more disturbing was the fact that Sage had truly been terrified almost out of his mind. It wasn't as though Sage had never held fear before, but never had Rowen known his friend to let fear be so powerful or consuming. It had truly been mortal terror Sage had not only felt, but unconsciously passed on to his friend. Even all the combined powers of Talpa and the Dynasty hadn't evoked such a powerful fear in his friend.
"What had you so scared?" Rowen whispered in disbelief, though he already knew what Sage was going to say.
"I'll tell you later. Right now I've got to get dressed and follow her before she gets too far," Sage said, shifting to rise from his crouched position.
"Where?" was all Rowen dared to say without the mouth-to-ear whisper they had been using.
Dropping back down beside his friend's ear Sage whispered, "I don't know. All I know is that…"
Sage's words dropped into silence as he caught the heart wrenching feeling of bitter loneliness and stinging pain that Hali was now feeling in some distant part of her now imprisoned conscious thoughts. And, above and beyond all of this Sage could feel something more, something not of Hali or her power. Not sure what or who the source could be, Sage only knew that he could feel a calling to follow her unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Much like the feeling that had led him to Hali's former camp sight, it gripped his sub-conscious in an unrelenting vise-like grip that he could not escape or deny. Nor did he want to.
"I've got to follow her. There's something about this that I-I can't understand. Something tells me it's important. It's…"
Sage's words trailed off again as his gaze seemed to grow distant for a moment. Leaning close to Sage's ear, Rowen pulled his friend out of his trance-like state.
"Don't go. I don't like the feel of this. Stay here and I'll get the others. We can follow her together."
After a moment's consideration, Sage quickly rejected this idea. "No. This is something I have to do alone. This is something you guys couldn't understand. It's not just Hali. There's something more."
Seeing his friends yearning to go as soon as possible, Rowen held him only a moment longer.
"Fine. Go. But if you aren't back in an hour I'm getting the others," he said, his concern bringing his voice well above the whisper they had been using.
"No. Don't tell the others. Not yet," Sage hissed, rising to his full height as he glanced out the door. Speaking in a voice closer to a normal tone he added over his shoulder as he moved toward the stairs, "Wait until I get back. I've got to figure this out first. Regardless what happens, wait at least two hours."
Not surprisingly, this last had been a command. And a command from Sage was something no one other than Ryo ever disobeyed. All of them, including Ryo himself, had learned that Sage was the Warrior of Wisdom and Spirit with good reason. Even if confusing or startling at the moment, anything Sage ordered was meant well and would later be understood.
Still, Rowen could not shake the sense of dread that rose within him as he thought about his friend. Watching worriedly, he let his friend glide inhumanly fast up the stairs and too his room without a sound. Less than two minutes later Sage reappeared coming down the stairs. Holding back the urge to join his friend, Rowen lay still on the sofa as his eyes followed his friend to the coat rack by the door.
"Two hours!" Rowen called softly as his friend grabbed a hunter green coat from the rack and raced out the door never missing a beat.
In an instant the Warrior of Wisdom was gone…