Wednesday Briefs: Ancalagon Ch. 122

The first time someone hit a button on their belt, the same one I’d seen Garjah wear so many times, and a light shimmered over them, I didn’t realize what it was. The second time I gawked. The third, I realized that their suits were really some sort of personal force shield technology. We had barely made ours small enough for ships, much less a person!

It was hard to accept that personal security of a shield was equal to the feeling of being encased in a suit, however. “Will that really work?” I asked.

“Of course.” Garjah tilted his head. “Do you believe I would put myself at risk when I have you to come back to?”

“You better not,” I answered.

“Be safe,” Garjah said as he dipped his head to kiss me. “I will be back soon.”

“Promise?” I muttered to him quietly. “I won’t wait here forever.”

“I swear.” He saluted me, and I pressed my lips together. He took that seriously, and so would I. The officers he left me with, two of the oldest who had worked for him this time, and I took refuge in the alcove of a building slightly down the road and across the way. We could see, but we weren’t in the direct line of sight. Garjah had pointed out exactly where he wanted me to stand when we walked by.

Bouncer whined, staring up where Garjah went. I knew he wanted to go with him, but he couldn’t climb down a building. Instead, he kept me corralled, like he knew where Garjah wanted me and was determined to keep me there.

We didn’t have to wait long, but the assault, when it started, was nearly soundless. The officers appeared over the top of the building and were sliding down the side, and the walls just… disappeared. I expected an explosion.

I couldn’t pick out Garjah from the others, no matter how hard I tried. He was probably one of the first ones in. All I could do was stand there, watch, and wait. It was excruciating.

“Please let him be okay.” I wasn’t sure who I was asking, but I’d ask anyway.

 

When the officers came for me, I nearly lost it. “Where’s Garjah?” I demanded. He was supposed to be right back, not send someone for me.

“He’s fine. He just wants you to come to him. Timok is with him, and they are overseeing the transfer of the Kardoval to secure quarters.”

“Timok?” Timok wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t hurt, would he? “When did he get here? I thought you said Garjah was fine!” Or maybe he would.

“Two of the officers with the Kardoval were hurt. Garjah is fine.” The officer doing all the talking sent the males with me to the detention center. “Garjah wants four high priority cells prepared with all the comforts. These are our leaders, after all, not common criminals.”

I snorted. “Common criminals would be better. The Kardoval knowingly deceived your people, probably for generations, to keep their own power regime going. They could have turned it around at any time, opening up your culture to outside influences and letting your people make their own decisions.”

“It is what Garjah wanted.” The officer’s voice was icy, and I didn’t have to imagine how much he disapproved of what I said. Oh well. I didn’t care. I didn’t appreciate the way the Kardoval had treated me or Garjah.

We started walking down the road, and my old guards went to the left toward the detention center as soon as we reached the corner. “It’s safe to go inside through the childcare center now?” I asked.

“No, we’re going to go a different way,” one said.

I frowned. “Which way?”

“The building beside here has an access way we didn’t know about.” They indicated the one past the building Garjah had breached.

“Really? All right.” It was better than exposing the young.

We entered the building, then went to a lift. I went in after one officer, and then the doors suddenly closed behind me. “Wait! Bouncer!”

The officer turned from the screen where he’d pushed a button. “What’s wrong? Where’s the cerops?” He looked around the small lift, as if the space could hide Bouncer somewhere.

“He got shut out. Open the doors!”

“We’re already going up. He won’t attack my partner will he?” The officer’s eyes were wide. “It was an accident. He’ll bring him right up, if he’ll get into the next lift.”

“Of course he’ll follow me. He’d follow me even if you don’t bring him up in a lift.” Bouncer would find me, even if he had to climb the walls himself.

“Oh, good. Garjah would kill me himself if anything happened to either one of you.” The officer relaxed out of the rigid posture he’d been in with his lower hands behind his back, and he put down his upper hands that he’d held up placatingly.

“Yes, he—” The lift doors opened. We must be at the building’s connection point. I got ready to step out, wanting the second lift with Bouncer to be able to arrive soon.

“Hello, human.”

I froze in disbelief. Standing in front of me, and very much not in custody in the other building, was Mereval. She smiled primly, though wrinkles crinkled the sides of her face and marred the once smooth skin and her hair was hanging limp down her back.

“Surprised?” She tsked. “So trusting still. It must be a flaw of your kind.”

A prick of icy fire struck the back of my shoulder, and my knees collapsed.

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Julie Lynn Hayes 

Wednesday Briefs Ancalagon Chapter 121

 

“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me! I-I can help you. Mereval, I know where she is. She commed us the orders, so I put a tracker on her signal, just in case.”

Garjah’s smile was a thing of sadistic beauty. “I didn’t train you, but at least you aren’t that stupid. Where’s the tracker?”

“P-pocket.”

“Essell?” Garjah wanted me to get it? Oh, orderer of the beast and all that. Stars! It was that, or he’d been able to smell that the man really had soiled himself because I was not happy I had to dig around in his pants to find the tracker device, which turned out to be a slim stylus in one upper thigh pocket.

“Won’t she assume her comm was tracked and get a new one?”

“I told you, they’re out of people and places to hide. We’ll use this to find them in no time.” Garjah turned and went back into the shed. I followed him and Bouncer followed me, leaving the rest of the officers to deal with our would-be attackers.

“Are you going to tell me what the rest of the plan is now?” I leaned against the back of his chair, watching Garjah plug the device into one of the ports on his comms. The screens lit up, one of them whirring while the other began beeping. “What’s that doing?”

He was busy tapping at some of the buttons on the consoles, but pointed to the one whirring or making the funny swish noise. “This one is masking our signal trace.” He pointed to the other one with his right hand. “This one is doing the active trace.”

“Just in case she has some sort of warning system?” I asked.

Garjah nodded. “Exactly. That idiot probably would have alerted her the second he tried to backtrace her signal, but I have sophisticated equipment that will mask my signal trace and also let us find her… aha, her exact location!” Garjah tapped two lit up squares on the console in front of him and a glowing indicator showed up on the screen that had been beeping.

“And, since I customized my security software, I can even verify that she’s the one we’re tracing.” He started moving faster now, using all four hands. I blinked, my eyes blurring as I tried to watch him.

“How?”

“I’ll use her own device to capture her DNA.”

“What if she isn’t touching it?”

“She is. Don’t borrow trouble. We’ll have enough of that trying to take the building she’s in.”

 

All out front assault was out. The Kardoval chose well. They were secured above a nursery full of young children. There was no way to get them out without alerting the rest of the building that there was something going on.

If nothing else, they were smart. Very, very smart. I guess having the capacity to access their genetic memories for every single skill made it inevitable that they’d be difficult to overthrow. Which was why it’d never happened before in their history.

Sort of made me sick to my stomach to think about, so I could only imagine how Garjah felt. Then again, his sense of justice and need to protect his people was always forefront in his mind, and that drove him. Even now, I could see him calculating and planning. We’d met up with a whole group of his security officers as well as several of the rebellion group, but I didn’t know any of them. I was sticking close to Garjah, and Bouncer was sticking close to me.

The rest of them gave us wide berth, but they were all looking to him. Good thing he was the best at what he did, even better than Mereval and her cronies. Sure, they were supposed to all be equal, but I knew she was the one who really pulled all their levers.

“We go in from the top.” Garjah pointed to a projected image of the building since we’d had to pull back. “Two officers, plus three volunteers go inside the ground floor to secure the young and exit. Seal off that entire floor so there’s no escape.” Two officers immediately raised their hands, and there were a few murmurs and two women and a male from the rebel group raised their hand to work with the children. “Good.”

“The rest of us will go in here. She’s still in this room, so we’re going straight for it. We’ll need burst cubes to dissolve the walls here.” He indicated space in the middle of the outer edge. “It’ll need to be large enough for at least two of us to go in at once, one to fire, one to cover.”

Garjah looked at them all seriously. “Stunning level only. We are not looking to kill the Kardoval; they must answer for their crimes in front of the people. Security suits set to maximum, however, they have no reason to keep you alive.”

Everyone nodded, their faces grim.

“Suits? You’ll have suits for this?” In all the time since I’d been on Ardra, I hadn’t seen any of them don a suit like I’d had on.

“Not quite like yours. Ours are more of an… outer layer. And it’s not made of metal; that is such a weak material.”

They were ready to go before I was. I was being left with Bouncer and an officer on the roof of the building where we’d dropped from a cloaked transport. I wasn’t happy, but I also didn’t want to swing halfway down a building into a hole where someone would be trying to kill me either.

My stomach roiled, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I hadn’t eaten in so long or because I was going to vomit. “We’ll be fine, I’m sure of it.” Garjah promised.

“Don’t promise something you can’t actually prove,” I said. “And be careful!” 

Wednesday Briefs: Ancalagon Ch. 120

 

A blaring alarm woke me, but Garjah was already up and out of our makeshift bed. He had a weapon in two of his hands, and he was manipulating the comms with his other ones. My body screamed at me from laying in such an awkward position, but I’d spent enough time living rough to know that moving was the only way to ease the stiffness.

“What is it?”

“Movement.”

“An animal?” It was probably unlikely in the city, but what did I know? I still hadn’t had the chance to study the plants or animals nearly as much as I wanted to.

“No, this is way too much movement. Plus, they’re trying to be sneaky.” He pointed to the triggered security alarms he’d wired up, the beams basically impossible to detect based on how fine they were  unless you were looking directly down the beam itself. “I did not train these males.”

I’d thought he was paranoid, making us still hide here and keep watch from a distance, but it looked like not even having Galactic negotiators would keep the Kardoval from trying to wrest back power. I recognized the glint of weapons in the hands of the stills he’d captured.

“What do we do?” My heart began to pound, and I didn’t even notice that Bouncer had woken up when I’d gotten out of the bed until he nosed his way under my lower hand and leaned against my hip. I rubbed his head and neck, letting his rumble distract me from the shakes that wanted to turn me into a quaking mess of terror instead.

There were at least five different officers converging on us based on the comm screens. “Close the trap,” Garjah said.

“Trap?” I stared at him dumbfounded. “You mean to say we’ve stayed out here, hiding like this, because you’ve been using us as bait?”

“Of course. It was the safest choice, and the quickest way I could think to draw out the Kardoval. Their arrogance would allow them to believe that I am afraid of them and their men, that I would fear something happening to you.” He turned to me. “I will never let that happen again.”

“You’re amazing.” He started to smile before I continued. “Amazingly infurirating! Stars!” I growled, literally growled, and Bouncer echoed me. “How about you let me decide when I want to act as bait, and not make all the decisions for us both! I rescued you last time, remember?” He would not start ignoring me when he made plans again and shove me into a bubble because I was not one of his officers and we still didn’t know quite how much my new body could handle. “I will not—”

A new alarm interrupted my tirade. Okay, maybe now wasn’t the time for it. I turned to the comm system. “What’s that?”

“Exterior perimeter has picked up the transport with our backup. They’ll be here before those five can reach the building.”

“They better be.” I stalked off, still angry at him.

 

I used the time wisely, wiping the sleep off my face and body and changing. There were shouts outside, sounds of weapons fire, and I crouched down in the corner with Bouncer in front of me, holding him close so he couldn’t try to run out. He vibrated with tension but as soon as Garjah answered a hail at the door of the shed that was apparently some sort of signal, we were both able to relax.

“Sneaky alien with his traps and setting up elaborate ruses and… wait! I thought you said this place was unknown and safe,” I said. Garjah was busy dismantling the equipment.

“It was. But we were followed, so I knew they’d find us. Now we can find them.”

“You think those men know where the Kardoval are?”

“I do,” he said. “They’ve no one else left, we’ve either captured all their other officers or they’ve joined us instead. Their bolt holes have been raided, one after the other. These officers will know where they are.”

Garjah’s confidence in their knowledge and his ability to get it from them baffled me. “Why would they tell you? They came here to kill you.”

“Maybe.” He tilted his head to one side. “But I can only imprison them. They know this. You and Bouncer on the other hand….”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I’m playing the savage alien with the dangerous bonded beast again?” I glanced down at Bouncer who was yawing, reminding me our night had been interrupted. “So ferocious.” Well, the sight of all those sharp teeth probably would scare the piss out of them.

“Don’t forget his poison. Excruciating and painfully slow way to die. No cure, you know.” Garjah was evil. Not because he wanted to bring his people into the Galactic and open their planet, but because he was just purely evil when he got that twinkle in his eye.

“Fine, we’ll do it. You ready now? Because frankly, I want hot water, food, and a real bed.” At his nod, I scritched Bouncer behind his ear, prompting him to tilt his head and look up at him. “Ready for some fun?” I asked him.

Strangely, I would swear he had the same glint in his eyes that Garjah had. Bursting out of the shed, we went after the nearest officer who was being held on his knees. “You came to kill me?” I shouted dramatically. “We will kill you right now!” I snapped my fingers my fingers and pointed. “Go!”

True to his name, Bouncer leapt at the man, bowling him over and landing with his front claws out on either side of his face, his heavy body straddling and pinning him down onto the ground. He snarled dramatically, baring his fangs. I never would have expected such a large man to have a high-pitched scream, and the shouts from the other captive officers added to the chaos.

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Julie Lynn Hayes

Wednesday Briefs: Winter Haven's Dyrpath Chapter 4

  

I braced for the burn, pain just another part of life when you have something people want. Or you want something, because nothing ever comes for free, and crossing that barrier had to come at a cost. The light was warm, then warmer, like the sun on a summer’s day at noon and it stung my eyes just as badly so I squeezed them shut. Sweat sprang up on my forehead, and I shook as I took another step, sure that was when it would start.

A shadow fell over my face, cooling the warmth, and my foot came down onto something crunchy. I gasped, opening my eyes. The source of the light hid behind more trees, just like the one that had been floating in the sky above the path, but this golden radiance gleamed in random patterns in the air and striped the ground. I wiped my hand through some quickly but… nothing.  

My skin was milky as always, not even a hint of pink.

The path was framed on either side by glowing rocks, and the snow crunched under my boots like gravel. Snow mounded between the trunks and into the distance. I scanned the trees, but the ill-omens were gone. It was so warm, I had to put my bag down and take off my extra clothes.

I dropped the ties of my bag into the snow and grimaced, my fingertips still chilled a dangerous white. I reached into the crunchy snow of the path to pick it up, then frowned. It was… warm. Well, not exactly, but not cold. It felt most like fluff, similar to soft fuzz from a broken cattail or shorn wool from a sheep before it was carded and spun.

Scooping up the tie, I closed my small pack and then slung it back over my shoulder. Was all the snow warm? I crept to the side of the path, wincing with each step no matter how gingerly I tried to place my feet. I reached over a glowing rock and touched the snow outside the path. “Brr!”

Nope, not all warm. Or not all snow here wasn’t real snow?

If only the witches or wizards who’d taken me had trained me rather than draining me. My magic had to be good for more than farm tokens, spelling livestock, and bewitching familiars.

“It is.” A deep voice behind me was the first indicator that I’d spoke aloud and that I wasn’t alone.

I whirled, heart racing, mouth agape and bent, poised to run… somewhere else. The voice was a young man’s, but the glowing being before me was a golden stag, with wide antlers that boasted many tips. So beautiful! He’d make a fine prize and provide many meals.

“I don’t think I’d like to be eaten, thanks. At least, not for dinner.”

Clamping my lips shut, I swallowed hard. Had I just offended him? Should I apologize? “Please forgive my words. I didn’t mean to say that aloud, and I would never dream of harming you.” A glowing stag as magestic as he? Never.

No matter how much my belly pinched with hunger.

A strange laugh, almost human, came out of the stag. “I bet you’re hungry.” I hadn’t said that aloud, I was sure of it. Maybe my expression gave me away? I always tried to hide how I felt, but I so often failed, leading to punishment. “Come.”

“Come where?”

“Winter’s Haven, of course. Where else do you think this path goes? I was sent to bring you the rest of the way.”

“Who sent you?”

“You shall see,” was all he would say.

 

Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go. The path rose for a time, challenging the last of my stamina. I caught my breath when we emerged between the branches of two trees that interwove in an arch over the path and stared down into a dell.

Somehow, the land itself created a home for those who lived there. I saw structures in trees, like birdhouses but nearly human-sized, while some trees had huge arching roots that grew into tangled webs poking into the ground for round cottages, set with doors and everything! There were stone buildings along a rock wall, but I couldn’t see any seams at this distance, with vibrant mossy roofs that draped over the eaves.

All along the pathway were other beings in different forms. Some glowed white, or black, or white and black like the ill-omens who had guided me to the entry to Winter’s Haven while others gleamed gold like the stag who’d come to greet me. I gasped when one ill-omen, maybe even one of the ones who’d come to me, hopped out of her little wood hut in the branches of a tree and flew toward the ground.

Before she landed, a white and black swirl of magic surrounded her, and then she was a human. Pale skin, dark hair… she could be my long-lost sister, if my sisters actually looked like me. “Is that— Did she—” I couldn’t finish either question, because the stag at my side was now a young man with golden skin over solid muscles and sun-kissed hair, his eyes a light honey-brown just pressed from the hive.

“Welcome to Winter’s Haven. Once you stop having your magic syphoned, you’ll find your own form and begin to transform too, don’t worry.”

“I will?” Wait. “You’re a dyrpath?”

He smiled. “Yes, dyrpath can also be born on the longest day of the year, on the stroke of noon. And we were all once like you: scared, hungry, so new to a life free from the abuse that the outside world heaps upon dyrpath.”  

“How?”

“The gods, maybe, in recompense for the world’s cruelty, gave us Winter’s Haven as a refuge. We try to find and save others, but the protective magic means you have to make the choice to take the path toward a new life.”

At first, I’d just planned to run away. But maybe he was right, in the end, I was running toward something instead. The dreams I’d heard whispered for years gave me just enough hope to take the first step, and now here I was. Pure joy and relief, feelings so foreign but so powerful, took hold and tears stung my eyes even as I grinned. I turned toward the stag.

“Thank you for helping save me. My name is Jophiel. What’s yours?” 

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Julie Lynn Hayes

Wednesday Brief's Winter Haven's Dyrpath Chapter 3

 

So weird this didn't post last week! I'm sorry! It's posted now, so you get a weekend update and a mid-week one as usual. Sorry!

The glowing tree began to grow and lift above the ground. “W-what is that?” The snow was swirling around us, and I forgot my intention to ignore the ill-omen and refuse to speak to it or listen as it spoke to me. I was freezing to death, and this was magic I had never seen. The lights I’d gone toward, knowing all along they were not the lanterns swinging on the roof eaves of the townsfolk I’d never met and who would probably refuse to shelter me anyway, set the large clearing alight in swirls of blues, greens, and glowing gold.

“Winter Haven,” she answered.

My lips parted on a sharp inhale, and I stared in shock. Winter Haven was a myth. Snow that wasn’t cold, food grew year-round, a make believe world that existed for those pure in spirit as a refuge from this miserable existence.

I took a step back. “That’s not possible,” I whispered.

“Why nooot?” This time the ill-omen was joined by another, their question echoed between them. I knew it; I knew I’d heard more than one beak pecking in my nightmares.

“Winter Haven doesn’t exist. It’s not real; it can’t be.” I hugged my bag to my stomach, the tiny parcel of my spare belongings fitting in the concave space as I hunched against the whistling blizzard pounding against my back. The ice drove against my skin where my woolen scarf had slipped down and my hair, twisted into its customary knot, exposed the scarred back of my neck where the hedge crone had cut me each day to steal my magic.

“It is,” one ill-omen said. “It doooes,” said the other at the same time. Their dark wings flapped, sending their all white bodies gliding across the clearing on silent drafts. “Youuu knewww,” they called. “It’s truuuth.”

I watched, fear and awe and the slightest kernel of hope inside me as their wings dipped inside those glowing, swirling lights. The barrier around them broke, and beams shot out. The gold sparkled, the green and blue intertwined under and around it. It moved faster than they flew, a blink all it took to reach me, and I screamed and cringed down into a ball, my eyes screwed shut.

Nothing burned. No warlock’s fire, no witch’s curse. No enchantment to draw on my magic and use it to fuel their spell or bind familiars to their bidding while I writhed in agony as parts of me were wrenched away. Gasping, trembling with cold that turned my limbs heavy and clumsy along with fear that froze me stiffer than the strongest of blizzard gales, I dared peek with one eye.

The light had stopped, right in front of me, a scant hair’s breadth from my shoe tips. If I just uncurled my fingers from around my knees, I would touch the golden light that rained down from the glowing green and blue strand that led back to that twisting, turning tree and the pathway under it. The path I could now see was before me.

“What does it want?” I whispered.

“To free youuu,” they called from their new perches in limbs of the tree guarding Winter’s Haven.

“How?” Dyrpath were never free; to a villager or city dweller, all magical kin were the same, useful for what they could provide or do depending on their power to conjure. Dyrpath were only born on the longest night of the year and that gave us the most power, but the connection to animals made us tainted, and our ability to be siphoned made us ill-luck. Power we could share, but it never went well in the end for those who stole it.

“Be whooo youuu are.”

To be born a dyrpath was to be blamed for both being powerful and for the harm stealing that power did to the very ones who stole it, all while being reviled… for what? Being having a connection to animals and hearing their thoughts and feelings? I had never understood my crime and had always hoped that the many magic users in my family would lead to someone who was different, who would understand me, truly make me an apprentice in more than name.

But I could neither find a home to welcome me nor run away from the torture of my daily existence without being dragged back to the next family member who decided they would make use of whatever drops of power they were willing to plunder. The last summer and fall of trying to befriend some of the villagers, only to have any solace I’d made ripped away when I was sent on to the frozen wasteland that was Cousin Vado’s had broken me from trying again.

Maybe I’d finally given up and this was all just a fever dream as I froze on a snowbank. The light looked so pretty, and so warm too.

 “Be whooo youuu are.”

I unfolded carefully, still clutching my pack, and took a breath. What did I have to lose? Nothing to go back to but pain. I gingerly touched the back of my neck, then glanced at the swirling darkness behind me. I shook my head.

Even if the light was certain death, it would be better than the attic and the shed. And what if it were true? What if Winter Haven did exist?

What if there truly was a place to be free? My life had been one of fear and obedience, but maybe, deep down, I had some bravery and curiosity left inside me.

Heart pounding, I stepped inside the light.  

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Julie Lynn Hayes