The Restorer's Son, page 9
part #2 of The Sword of Lyric Series
No. He couldn’t understand.
He wasn’t in his own world. He didn’t know Kahlareans were tracking us and wouldn’t comprehend what that meant anyway. I heard him moving around in the cave, and then his quiet footsteps approached as he joined me outside.
“Here.” He handed me my dagger, flat across his open palm. He didn’t have a clue at how furious I was at him or why. I gritted my teeth harder, sliding the blade into my boot sheath before I was tempted to use it. I bundled my red-hot anger and pressed it downward into the frigid lump of stone I found easier to control. He must have been able to read the set of my shoulders, because he retreated into the cave and left me alone.
Patience.
I thought I had plenty. I could hide in a doorway for hours, motionless, assessing if it was safe for me to enter the street. It had taken years to build up my contacts in Hazor during my search for cousins lost when Shamgar fell. I could rebuild a transtech component a dozen times in a row until it worked right. I knew all about patience.
But Jake had managed to fray every rein on my temper. I should have killed him before I had found out who he was.
Much later I joined him in the cave.
“We’re being followed.” I kept my voice flat. Resentment continued to writhe inside me like a nest of newborn rizzids. “They usually strike at dusk when they’re hunting, but they won’t want to give us time to get away. My guess is that they’ll attack at first light.”
Jake didn’t answer. He sat with his legs drawn up, watching me, face carefully blank.
“Are you listening? If they had moved in sooner, you’d be dead now.”
In the pale glow of the light cube, his mask slipped. Honest fear skittered across his face. He swallowed. “Why? Who are they? Why would they want to kill me?” He tried to keep his voice as level as mine but couldn’t mask the telltale high pitch of anxiety.
“They’re after me, not you. But they aren’t always particular about who they kill.”
“And why do they want to kill you?”
“Actually, they want me alive. They think I know . . . something useful.” I knelt down to pull some bread out of my pack. “The point is we’re in danger. So when I ask you to stay on guard”— I drilled his eyes with the cold anger in my own—“I expect you to stay on guard.”
His chin dropped, and he stared at his shoes.
“Understand?”
He nodded listlessly.
“Do you understand?” I bit each syllable.
His eyes flicked over my face and back down. “Yes. All right? I’m sorry.”
His sullen apology made my jaw clench. I drew my sword, positioned myself near the cave entrance, and shut down the light cube. I wasn’t hungry, but I gnawed on the small loaf of bread. I didn’t bother to offer any to Jake. He had his own supplies if he was hungry.
His pack scuffed against the stone as he positioned it as a pillow and tried to get comfortable on the damp stone surface. I focused on the black void beyond the cave, listening, straining to see any variation in darkness or sense any movement.
Much later Jake shifted again. He tapped one finger aimlessly as if keeping time to a song in his head. Soon he sighed and turned again.
“Now what?” I said at last.
He went very still, then cleared his throat. “Sorry. I can’t sleep.”
I shook my head, knowing he couldn’t see me in the darkness. “Well, you didn’t have that problem earlier.” And suddenly it struck me as funny. A chuckle broke out of my tight throat. Then I started laughing in earnest, though I kept the volume low. We didn’t want to draw the attention of anything lurking outside. My free arm gripped my side as my shoulders shook. Jake started to laugh too. First from nervous tension, then in genuine relief. I thought of how angry I’d felt when I discovered he wasn’t lying dead in a pool of blood, and that triggered another round of laughter until I was gasping.
“You’re safe for the night,” I told him once I caught my breath. My voice sobered. “They aren’t likely to attack until morning, and I’ll stand guard.”
“That’s not why I can’t sleep,” he said quietly. “I can’t figure this out.”
“Figure out what?” I adjusted my position and moved my sword to my other hand for a while.
“You were really friends with my mom and dad?”
Friends? My past encounters with Susan and Markkel played through my mind. Swords, daggers, and angry confrontations seemed to be a frequent element of each memory.
“We helped each other. They fought to protect my clan. Hazor was going to destroy Braide Wood.” The darkness made it easier to talk. I told him the story again. This time he was able to take in more of it. Dark watches of the night slipped past while he asked quiet questions, and I wove a story that was fairly close to the truth.
“And then they left to go back to your world,” I finished at length.
“But if she could do all those superhero things because she was the Restorer, does that mean you . . . ?” I could almost hear magchips sparking in Jake’s mind. “How come you could heal my foot? Are you . . . ?”
What difference would it make now? He’d find out when we reached Braide Wood. Tristan or Kendra or Tara would let something slip. Not cautious enough by half.
“Yes. All right? I’m the next Restorer.” Resentment sharpened my voice. “The One wants me to do something. Not sure what.”
He let out a low whistle. “Wow.” He nudged his pack into a new position under his head. “And you’re not happy about it?”
“Happy?” So many objections raced through my thoughts that I sputtered. “No, I’m not happy.”
“Humph.” Jake flopped around again.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just, well . . . I’d be pretty excited if God gave me a job like that. Selling car parts at Harvey’s is all right, but”—I heard the smile in his voice—“when I was a kid, I wanted to be a knight and battle dragons and fight for the helpless.”
I couldn’t understand half of his words. I’d had the same problem with his mother. But I followed the general idea, and my mouth twisted. “You’ll get along great with Tristan.” I glared out into the darkness. “But it’s not like that. I’m supposed to follow the Verses, and I don’t know if I believe in them. Everything keeps going wrong. Your mom was a pretty odd Restorer, but she had . . . I don’t know. Faith.”
“You don’t?”
“I have faith that the world doesn’t make sense and the One is playing some crazy game. I don’t want to be a part of it, but He won’t leave me alone.”
Jake snickered and some of my earlier irritation returned. “You think it’s funny?”
“No, no. I remember thinking something like that once, when I was young.”
As far as I was concerned, he was still young. And I didn’t appreciate his condescension.
“What would you know about it?” He had two parents who had cared about him. The easy way he trusted showed me he hadn’t suffered enough betrayals to harden him yet. And the wistful way he spoke of doing battle for the One showed me he’d never had to cross swords with a serious enemy. He heard my disdain and was quiet for a while.
“Cancer.” He said the word as if it were very significant.
“What?”
He sighed. “It’s an illness. On our world. Trust me. I know a little bit about the world not making sense.”
It was my turn to be quiet. “Tell me,” I said at last.
He explained the battle that had shaped several years of his childhood. He told me of a sickness that poisoned the very blood in his veins and nearly took his life. He told me of the painful lengths he went to in fighting it. His voice was so low that I was grateful for my enhanced hearing so I could follow his story. I’ve confronted death many times, but always with strength in my arms and a sword in my hand. His descriptions chilled me.
“And after that, you still serve the One?” There was no sneer left in my voice.
“Who else would I live for? I’ve seen pain and evil. I know their source. It’s not the One.” His youthful voice deepened, and he sounded far older than his years. “He’s not your enemy.”
Goosebumps rose on my arms. His words were too similar to things Susan had said to me. But I’d spent my life wresting my fate from the hands of the confusing and distant One, and I didn’t know how to see Him as anything but one more enemy among the many that threatened me.
“So are you going to tell me?” Jake asked.
“What?”
“Why all the running and hiding? Why don’t you want anyone to know where we’re going? Why couldn’t we ask those police guys in Lyric for help?”
I had long since concluded that Jake wasn’t lying about being Susan and Markkel’s son. And although he posed a danger because of his carelessness and knowledge about me, I doubted he would willingly betray me. Yet I didn’t want to answer. He would have no comprehension of what it meant to be banished from the clans . . . but I did. Putting it into words would make it that much harder to ignore.
“Get some sleep,” I said, wishing I’d left him with Tag in Lyric.
He didn’t argue with me, and soon his breathing grew slow and even. As morning drew closer, my eyelids dragged down, so I pulled out my sharpening stone to help me stay alert. My boot knife needed honing after the abuse of cutting into the bitum trees. I pulled the blade smoothly across the stone, testing the edge in the darkness. By the time the blade was sharp, the vague shape of trees grew visible on the ridge far across the canyon from us. I stepped outside the cave and listened.
There it was. Soft voices and an almost imperceptible brush of movement below us.
I slipped back into the cave and shook Jake. He groaned.
“Shhh. Jake, wake up. Now.” I pressed my dagger into his hand and drew my sword. “They’re coming.”
Chapter
10
Susan
After a mug of clavo and more empty reassurances, Mark left the apartment to get some food. The jetlag of other-reality travel rolled through me, and I curled up on the couch to nap. When you counted the day we spent traveling from Braide Wood to the portal and our own world, then the return journey and full day of searching, we’d missed a night of sleep somewhere.
Unconsciousness closed in around me like a hidden cave. My anxiety dissipated into the darkness. I was in a safe place, and I nestled down, happily unaware of time passing. Then I sensed someone else in the cave. I forced my eyes open a slit, even while part of my brain told me that I was in a dream and my real eyes couldn’t be open.
A figure huddled against a rock wall. I tried to move closer, but my limbs felt filled with sand. The person turned to me.
Jake! Are you all right? I reached for him and managed to move one more nightmare-weighted step closer.
His face was strained, contorted with tight muscles. He clutched a dagger in a trembling hand.
Jake, it’s me!
He looked through me toward the pale light at the cave entrance.
It’s okay. I’m here. We came to bring you back.
No audible words would pass my lips, and it was clear he couldn’t see me. I strained to reach him, but couldn’t move.
“They’re coming,” he whispered. He hugged the dagger close, gripping it with both hands.
A crash sounded outside the cave. Jake jumped, and I bolted upright, grabbing the arm of the couch. Breathing hard, I pulled my eyes open. Mark had banged open the door.
“I saw Jake,” I gasped. Even with my death grip on the couch, I couldn’t stop shaking.
Mark dropped his bundles on the common-room table and ran to hold me. “Shh. It’s okay. You were dreaming.”
“I was in a cave, and I saw him. He looked so afraid. Something was hunting him. Jake had a knife in his hand.” I pulled back and stared into Mark’s eyes. “We have to find him!”
Resolve tightened the small lines around Mark’s eyes, and his forehead creases deepened. “Susan, we will. I promise.”
I gave in to my fear and pain and collapsed against Mark, tears blotching the shoulder of his tunic. These were not decorous tears like those brought on by sentiment at a wedding or a sad movie. These were the wrenching cries of a parent who is no longer able to keep life safe for her child. The same kind of sobs that shook me ten years ago when the doctor told us about Jake’s cancer. As he had then, Mark held me until I was wrung out and left with only damp remnants of emotion.
When a discreet knock sounded at our door, I slipped into the back washroom and left Mark to talk with Jorgen’s messenger. I splashed water on my face and then stayed bent over, curled around the physical ache I had carried in my chest since Cameron had interrogated me last season. A healer told Mark that my heart was permanently damaged—which made no sense since at the time I was the Restorer and every other injury healed rapidly. Mark had planned to get me to a doctor in our world. One more thing we hadn’t had time for before being pulled into another crisis. Murmurs of conversation carried from the outer room. I rubbed my temples in frustration as I discovered how much I had relied on enhanced hearing and vision that I no longer possessed. I dried my face and went to join Mark. The messenger had already left.
Mark stood in the open doorway. By the set of his shoulders, the news wasn’t good.
“That bad?” I asked quietly.
Mark pivoted, as startled as when I would sneak up behind him at the computer and shout “gotcha” in his ear. Today neither of us laughed.
He slid the door closed and thumbed the magnetic lock before sinking into a chair. He stared at the floor with more dazed intensity than I’d ever seen him use on his computer screen. “Jorgen found someone who talked with Jake.”
I gasped in a lungful of air but didn’t say anything.
“The chief councilmember from Blue Knoll ran into him outside the Council tower a few days ago. He was asking for help, so they told him to present himself to the chief councilmember of Lyric, where all guests are supposed to report.”
Black fog began crowding the edges of my vision, and I realized I was still holding my breath. I let it out slowly, fumbling for a chair near Mark and sinking down into it.
“Jake told them he would.” Mark tore his gaze away from the floor and looked at me. “Susan, he went to Cameron.”
“You don’t need to come with me.” Mark belted his sword and tugged his borrowed tunic into place. He hadn’t wanted to approach a fellow councilmember without the authority of his own standing on the Rendor Council proclaimed across his torso. I smoothed the two stripes on his shoulder that indicated his status. When Mark faced Cameron’s five stripes, his ingrained respect for any chief councilmember would flare to life and cause him to proceed with deference.
I didn’t have that problem and refused Mark’s offer to get me a Council tunic. I had no respect for Cameron and couldn’t pretend otherwise. The complex traditions of this world didn’t bind me in the same way as Mark. Motley travel wear suited me fine. I only wished I had my sword at my side.
During the night we did some clandestine exploration of the hidden rooms beneath the Council offices. Very few people knew they existed, and if Cameron was holding Jake, we guessed that was where we would find him. When our search turned up nothing, we had argued long into the night about how to proceed and came to an uneasy consensus that we would have to talk to Cameron. He knew everything that happened in Lyric and was our best source of information.
“I’m coming,” I said, pretending to be confident. “You’ll need someone to watch your back. Cameron is a snake.”
“I know.” Mark opened the door and patted his pockets, looking for car keys from force of habit. Keys that he didn’t have with him and wouldn’t need in this world. “But don’t aggravate him. We need his help.”
“Help? He’d sooner poison us.” I followed Mark out into the hall and matched his stride. I wished it were a longer walk to the low building that housed the Council offices.
Mark gave me a worried look. “Let me do the talking, okay?”
I sighed. “I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were. You just . . . you’re not . . . you don’t do a great job of hiding your feelings.” Mark gave me a lopsided smile, begging me not to take offense. “I love you, you know.”
“I love you more,” I answered automatically.
“I love you more than you love pizza,” he countered.
“I love you more than you love hardware stores.”
“Good one!” We smiled until we reached the door outside Cameron’s office.
The levity fled from my heart, and my stomach gripped and twisted. A well-armed Council guard opened the door and waved us inside, then followed us in and took up a position by the door. My skin crawled as I remembered the last time I had been in this room.
Cameron sat behind his huge onyx desk, and he didn’t get up. Mark stepped forward. “Thank you for meeting with us, Chief Councilmember.” Mark held his expression carefully neutral. He had arranged for the meeting early this morning, so our presence was no surprise to Cameron.
Lyric’s chief councilmember looked exactly as I remembered. Hair as dark as bitum sap, tunic as flawless as his features, and eyes that followed us like a cobra’s.
“I confess I’m puzzled.” Cameron leaned back in his chair. There were no other chairs in the room, so Mark and I stood like children in the principal’s office. “I was told by a reliable source that you had left Lyric and didn’t intend to return.”
I glanced over at Mark, wondering who had been revealing our whereabouts, but Mark kept his gaze on Cameron.
“That was our plan.” Mark’s voice was level. “We need help with one matter before we leave. And since we know you’ll be glad for that to occur, it seems we have common ground.”
