Broken Ability Part 1-3

That night I lay in bed awake for the first time in months. Unknown monsters lurked in the darkness, hunting my father out in the wilds.

With a great sigh I sat up, rubbing my eyes hard then about the room.

In the gloom of moonlight, I spied the book father had been studying lying forgotten on his neatly made bed. It was wasteful, but I lit another of my candles and sat at the table, smoothing over the worn leather cover.

Opening the first page I read hungrily, father’s own cramped writing adorning the cover.

“Scouting log and notes, Sartor Lectus, My 16^th summer.”

I gasped, hurriedly flipping through the pages. Inside were sketches my father had made of different monsters in their various forms. There were some with strange numbers of legs, arms, or just oddly shaped altogether. There was always a scale figure next to the monster, sometimes a cat, a skooka, or a bear, other times small as a bird.

In some spots, there were other handwritten or printed pages torn out from whatever other books they’d been a part of.

“Goddess!” I cried, flipping a page that was stuck to another, dark red stained with dried blood.

I shut the book, snuffed out the candle and lay awake for hours.

Seven more days passed, and I awoke again at first light, numbly falling into my routine before I registered it was the day of Father’s return. I hurried through all the chores, certain that Father would want to celebrate the journey and his exploits.

The morning wore away as I worked, careful to make sure that everything was perfect for him to return. Morning quickly melted into a warm afternoon as I toiled, finishing just before the heat of day. I swapped by soaked clothes for relatively clean ones, making a mental note to carry extra water for washing.

I hurried around the hut, using the last of our choice ingredients to prepare a decent meal. I piled Father’s plate with dried meat and three large, speckled eggs I’d gathered that morning. After tidying the hut, I waited outside on a log, careful not to dirty my clothes.

The afternoon wore on a bit longer and I grew somewhat restless.

I got up, pacing the area outside the hut.

“Father didn’t say when he would return on the fourteenth day,” I muttered.

Finally, I did the only thing that could calm my nerves. I pulled out my sturdy wooden blade after stripping to my waist. I went through my progressions, slowly loosening my muscles and combining my hearing skills, identifying all the small creatures around the hut. I imagined enemies in front of me, beside, and behind, fighting the false fighters with everything I had.
I worked like that for hours, shutting off my mind just as Father had coached me.

“Letum,” a voice said softly.
I froze, sword braced overhead, an instant from coming down over a disarmed foe. My back was turned, but I knew it was Elder Reffics by her voice, it’s cadence, and the way it felt to my ears.

I let my wooden sword point fall to the ground, turning to meet her eyes.

“He hasn’t come home,” I said.

Elder Reffics stood there, sad eyes writing a story I couldn’t read. She gazed at me for a moment, both there at the edge of the dusty training yard and somewhere far off. “If he hasn’t come by the morning, we’ll go to find news of him. I’ve already asked at the inn but no one has come from Cypress City or northwards in over a week.”

“What if-“ I began.

“No,” Elder Reffics broke in, raising a blue cloaked arm. “No what if’s until we have news.” She lowered her arm and softened her voice. “I would like to have to stay at my home tonight. We can eat tonight and go first thing in the morning.”

I glanced through the open door where the table still sat, Father’s plate attended by a lone fly. Elder Reffics followed my gaze.

“Thank you, but I have to tend to the animals in the morning,” I said with burning cheeks. “I can meet you as soon as I’m finished.”

“Very well. We will wait for you in the village.”

I didn’t sleep at all. A fierce churning in my stomach kept me turning in the darkness. I arose long before first light, causing the chickens to scurry about and the cows to start when I milked them.

I didn’t speak, didn’t ease them, all the time my stomach twisting my insides into a sausage link.

I dressed carefully in my best clothes, by all standards in need of repair. I pulled my steel blade from it’s special place by the bed, leaving my wooden blade neatly along the floor. The weight was nearly identical, but somehow the steel swung in a neater arc, it’s grip more relaxed. I strapped it carefully to my side, the first time since slicing a neat piece of my leg out some months ago.
I relaxed a bit, it’s weight on my side a reassuring hand. I stood in the hut, looking at Father’s empty bed and the book that still lay shut on the table.

“Please Goddess Mirtha, let him be okay,” I breathed.

I walked a narrow trail through the woods, steps falling heavily upon battered leaves left over from last fall. The village loomed ahead out of the trees, it’s squat wood and stone buildings cast in a pre-dawn glow. Hallan was only a collection of about thirty huts, and a few larger buildings made when the old ones burned or fell down.

The village did not grow, but there were still children waking early to tend chores. Inside houses candles were lit, windows opening and life burning away the stillness of night. Uncertain of myself in the village at such an hour, I elicited a stare from two nosy women perched near a streetcorner. Bulging washpots disguised their true purpose of gathering to gossip away from prying ears.

“That’s Sartor’s son, the one who lives in the woods. I hear he’s training him every day, working the boy to the bone.”

“It’s a shame. A boy like that needs a good education these days. My, he does look like a young warrior, though…”

I began humming to drown out the women’s noise, walking straight through the dirt streets of the sleepy village to Elder Reffics’s house on the other side.

I found my way into a wider lane with spaced out houses made of wood just as the sun crested the further tree line.
“HAH!” a shout rang out, followed by pink crystals flying through air. I started, leaping back in the road. I quickly energized my ears and listened around for monster noises.

Elder Reffics leapt from around the corner of a house, her back facing me. Her blue robe was gone, replaced by a sleek black cloak covering dark leather light armor. A dagger was strapped to her side, but there was an otherworldly glow about her hands. As I listened, fearing a monster attack, she dove quickly out of view around the corner of a nearby house to my left.

Her voice made it’s way down the lane as I neared. “Not yet, Rose! You need to make them stronger! Focus your energy and condense it into each part. Feel the stone in your hand and emulate it!”

I circled behind the house to find Rose, her ability active, hands and eyes aglow with bright pink energy. Elder Reffics stood about ten feet opposite her with a pink crystal shield stemming from her hands, hanging in the air in front of her.

“Rah!” Rose cried after a moment, letting loose much smaller but somehow deadlier looking crystals from her hands.

The shield Elder Reffics held shuddered, then cracked slightly before becoming solid again with a pulse of power.

“Great work! You’re certainly growing stronger, my child,” Elder Reffics said, letting the energy fade to dust.

“Thank you, Mother, I’ve been practicing a lot,” Rose said, grinning.

“Ah, Letum! I suppose you’ve finished your daily chores?” Elder said, with a grin. She tossed up a hand in welcome.

Rose whipped her head around, grin disappearing.

“That was amazing!” I said. “I didn’t realize you were so talented, Rose!”

Her cheeks turned a fierce red and she lowered her head shyly, “Thanks.”

“Ah, Rose, be kind! He means it,” Elder Reffics said. “Let’s be off, then. Don’t want to miss any tradesmen we might see along the way.”

Rose and I followed the Elder around the house and back onto the village lane, making our way to the north. After another turn onto a wider path we quickly left the huts and cleared fields behind, forest leaping up high on either side of the earthen path.

“How far will we need to go, Elder? To the City itself?” I asked, taking in the different landscape. It wasn’t often I traveled beyond the village, and my memory of northwards was hazy.

“There should be a trading post about five miles along this road, just after a hill where the city towers come into view. I’m hoping we can find some word there. It’s unusual that a messenger isn’t sent with word if Saviors from the village are in an expedition.”
“Saviors?” I asked.

“Ah,” Elder Reffics said, “That’s an old term. It’s what they used to call those of us with abilities. It has something to do with some being chosen to be the goddesses saviors, but no one is quite certain anymore.”

Rose cleared her throat, “It’s meant to mean that we can save the world from the monsters.”

Elder Reffics gazed at her daughter with a smile, “Is that so?”

Rose looked importantly at her mother and I. “You would remember too if you’d been reading the texts, mother.”

The Elder’s soft metal laugh came out again, “You’re right, Rose, but that’s why I have you to help keep me straight.”
We walked awhile in silence, several miles passing under my shoes well-trod soles as the terrain became rockier. Pebbles scattered about the path stabbed at my feet.

“Strange,” Elder Reffics said after some time. “No one's come south on the road today.”

I squinted forward, “I didn’t think we got many visitors in the summer season.”

“That’s right, Letum, not many come to stay in the inn. Most traders normally hold out till Windhall away east. But still… merchants should be using this road to get there, and down to the coast. No news in almost a week this time of year is… strange to say the least.”

A short while later, I noticed a bank of brush bordering the road tamped down unnaturally.

“Elder, look there,” I said pointing. Elder Reffics said nothing but motioned us to be silent. In single file we slowed our pace and came even with the brush, peering in as best we could.
“What do you hear?” Rose asked.

“Oh, right. Uh… nothing but small bugs.Flies, I think?” I said, attempting to discern a strange buzz.

Elder Reffics stepped forward into the brush and I followed, suddenly hit with the smell of death. Buried in the brush was a horse, a strong looking bronco with a great hole in his side. The gore gaped through to his innards.
“Mirtha!” I hissed, stepping back.
“What did this, mother?” Rose asked, crossing her eyes at me.

Elder Reffics shook her head, sharp eyes searching the brush as her hands began to glow faintly.
“Be silent. Whatever it was, it’s probably gone. It might’ve been some bandits, maybe, but they wouldn’t normally strike on this road. The city guard should’ve seen this on their road patrol… Come, let’s continue, but a bit more cautiously.”

We didn’t see a soul for several more miles and came upon a steep upslope.

“This must be the hill where the city comes into view, right Mother?” Rose asked.

“That’s right,” Elder Reffics said, steel in her voice.

Her eyes were narrow, her hands glowing bright. “Edge of the path, behind me,” she said.

We hastened to do as she said. Instinctively my hand crept to rest on my sword hilt.
“Stay,” Elder Reffics breathed, motioning us to stay further down the rise. She continued alone to the top of the crest as Rose and I crouched on the roadside, watching the road behind and forest around.

“Oh, good goddess Mirtha,” Elder Reffics gasped aloud, rising at the crest.
“Mother,” Rose breathed, bounding from our spot. I followed behind, heart thudding heavily in my chest.  

I crested the hill and froze. Far off, the high metal and stone towers of Cyprus City were wreathed in smoke. More than one was full of flame, another crumbling before our very eyes. It was so far away it looked like it was happening in slow motion. As the tower began to lean, then slide and fall away, so too did my world.