Call of the Herald (27 page)

The tribesmen attended their horses, removing
saddles and scraping sweat. They used large leather bags to water
the horses. It took Catrin a moment to locate Benjin and the
others, and she was relieved to see them unharmed. When she found
Nat, he was limping toward her, leaning heavily on his staff. The
ride had been rough on him as well.

As Catrin strode forward to meet him, no one
moved to stop her. She walked past many tribesmen, who paid her
little mind, seeming to be utterly consumed with tending to their
mounts. The leaders, though, were gathered in a tight circle,
obviously involved in another heated argument. When she reached
Nat, he spoke out of the side of his mouth.

"We have much to discuss, but I can't speak
freely," he said just above a whisper, and at the same moment, the
tribal leaders separated. Vertook glared at Nat, and he moved away
quickly.

"Calm and confident, li'l miss," Benjin
whispered as the leaders approached. Catrin tried to appear
composed, despite her anxiety.

Vertook swaggered up to them. "You, Catrin
Volker, claim to be Herald of Istra, yes?"

"Yes," Catrin replied, wondering why they
would ask her again.

"Prove it," he said simply.

Chapter 17

That which is not broken can be made
better.

--Ivan Jharveski, inventor

* * *

Frozen in place, Catrin was terrified that
trying to prove her powers and failing would mean their deaths.
Even success would be fraught with danger.

"Do your thought-isolation meditation,
now,
" Benjin said to her even as Vertook's glare demanded
his silence.

She wasn't certain she could do it, but she
had no better ideas. She sat on the ground, cupped her hands, and
closed her eyes. Her mind was hammered with intense thoughts too
fleeting to grab on to. She focused on her frustration, squeezed
her eyes shut, and ignored everything else.

The gasp from a tribesman distracted her, and
she channeled it into annoyance, letting it feed her anger. She
forced her mind to be consumed by a raging tirade that included a
litany of irritants and annoyances. Each grievance was slammed into
that thought. While some part of her cautioned against such anger
in a meditative state, she slammed that thought inside too and let
it feed the rest. She had no choice but to give this effort all she
had.

When her energy reached its apex, Catrin
could find only an angry haze of emotions. She raised her cupped
hands slightly and threw them out wide. Concentrating on a second,
more positive thought, she slammed her hands together, smashing the
accumulated mass of negative energy with the positive charge. A
blast of hot air rolled away from her, and booming echoes
resounded.

Catrin opened her eyes to see what she had
wrought. Benjin had sat down heavily, looking as if he had been
assaulted. The others looked as if they had been struck by an
enormous hand, so dumbstruck were their expressions.

The leaders once again convened in a circle,
and the meeting almost instantly transformed into a brawl. Men
quickly separated those who fought, and soon they were back to
their heated argument. Several more scuffles erupted, and Catrin
waited in silence for the madness to play itself out. No one said
anything, lest the enraged group turn on them.

The fighting reached a crescendo, and it
seemed all of the tribal leaders were involved. An elderly man
advanced toward the writhing mass, shouting, waving his arms, and
pointing at the men. Catrin did not know what he said, but his
words seemed to demand order.

The brawlers removed their headgears and
began to treat their wounds. Vertook's nose was bloodied, and he
began to stuff small bits of cloth up his nose to stanch the
bleeding. The old man lectured the leaders while they dressed their
wounds, and it was plain that he shamed them. When the meeting
reconvened, it did so in a much more subdued fashion. After what
seemed an interminable time, they appeared to come to some
conclusion, and they turned to face Catrin. Vertook stepped
forward.

"We not believe you. Proof not enough," he
said, having difficulty speaking with his nose plugged. Catrin
heard his words and felt a cold, sinking feeling in her stomach.
This was not going well at all, she thought, and Nat's stricken
look confirmed her fear.

"One more chance; you show
big
power"--he waved his arms out wide--"or all die for trying to fool
Arghast," Vertook said.

Catrin moved in front of each tribal leader
and looked each one in the eyes. She measured them individually,
and many became offended and enraged. One man had to be restrained
by his tribesmen, but Catrin did not flinch. These men were
threatening to kill her and her companions, and she had nothing to
lose. She strode slowly back to the center of the group and
addressed everyone in the valley.

"The tribes of Arghast have assaulted the
Herald of Istra and her Guardians. They have asked for proof of the
Herald's power, and they have found her demonstration insufficient.
Now I will show the tribes of Arghast the true power of the Herald
at their own peril. Power is a dangerous thing, and to see it is to
be threatened by it. Once unleashed, fate will choose its targets.
I have tried to spare you, but you leave me no choice; I must put
us all at risk. You have made your decision. So be it."

Her words echoed and hung ominously over the
valley. Not waiting for a response, she strode straight to Nat and
looked him in the eye. His fear was showing.

"May I have your staff?"

"I can deny you nothing, Lady Catrin," he
said loudly and bowed, presenting his staff. She accepted it, and
it felt good in her hands, lighter than it appeared. The iron-shod
tip somehow balanced the strange staff, and she could feel its
strength, as if it had power of its own. The wood was smooth and
highly polished but was not slippery or oily. She hefted it with a
determined smile and turned to her companions.

"Guardians of the Herald, I call you to duty.
Please assist me while I satisfy the curiosity of the mighty
Arghast tribes."

Benjin winced as a few men reacted to her
comment. He and her friends stood before her, awaiting her command.
She was not surprised that Nat joined the group, but when Vertook
stepped up, it gave her heart.

While the tribes had been fighting, Catrin
had been scanning her surroundings for energy. The mountains
revealed nothing to aid her--except a small clue: water. She
guessed heavy rains fell there occasionally, and when they did, the
runoff would have to go somewhere.

She looked at the sand, sensing the surface
then delving beneath it. The sand was not very deep in the valley,
and in some places it was only a couple of feet deep. Under the
loose sand, a layer of compressed sand formed brittle sandstone.
Not far beneath the sandstone, she sensed a layer of bedrock. When
she cast her senses deeper, through the bedrock, she found
water.

Her father had taught her about artesian
basins, and she remembered her lessons well. This valley had all
the criteria. Rainwater drained from the mountains and into the
basin, where it fed an underground aquifer. Layers of rock that
rose higher into the mountains also collected and held runoff.
Water was trapped below an impermeable layer of bedrock and,
subsequently, was under intense pressure.

Trusting her instincts, she scanned the
bedrock for thin spots and found her target at the back of the
valley, a short walk from where she stood. Asking her Guardians to
follow her, she strode confidently toward that spot.

The valley floor sloped downward, and the
sand was a shade darker in the area Catrin selected. She stood atop
the spot, closed her eyes, and reached into the sand with her
senses, trying to be fully focused. Her mind pierced the bedrock
and felt the intense repulsion of the water. Moments passed while
she considered her options. The lives of many depended on her
decision, and she did not want to make it in haste.

"What do you want us to do, Catrin?" Chase
asked. "I think they're losing patience."

"I want you to dig."

"Oh for the love of everything good and right
in this world, not the digging thing again," Strom said, and Chase
smacked him on the back of the head.

"We'll do what you say, Catrin," Chase said.
"Just tell us."

"Dig a hole here, please. Make it as deep as
you can," she replied, leaning on Nat's staff while the others dug.
She needed to conserve her energy for the task ahead, although she
was not certain she could do anything. The energy the comet had
spilled into her world was fading like a scent on a breeze, and it
was becoming increasingly difficult to detect its energy, let alone
harness it.

Her senses seem to have dulled in the time
since the comet was last seen in the sky, and she wondered if she
could get those sensations back, but she put the thought from her
mind and concentrated on what she must do. Her Guardians made good
progress, and the hole was already quite deep. Chase stood in the
hole, and only his head and shoulders were above ground level.

The initial dig had been relatively easy,
allowing them to use their hands as shovels, but when they reached
the layer of sandstone, they had trouble going deeper. They used
everything they had to break up the brittle sandstone, and they
removed it in large chunks. Catrin desperately hoped the tribesmen
would have enough patience to let them finish, and as the last of
the sandstone layer was cleared from a small area, she saw the
bedrock.

Running her senses over it, looking for the
thinnest point, she found a likely spot, but it was close to the
edge of their hole. "Clear that area, please," she said, and they
quickly removed the sandstone. "I need to finish this," she said.
Benjin helped her into the hole and handed Nat's staff to her.

With a deep breath, she gathered all the
energy she could pull from the night air. The moon was bright above
the mountains, but she felt little energy from it. She mustered
what she could and drove the staff into the bedrock with all her
strength. The staff struck stone and rang a sharp discord through
the valley. Sparks flew and a few small chips broke away, but her
blow had done little damage. Her next blow struck with such force
she felt the staff flex in her grasp, and she feared it might snap
in two. She paused to catch her breath and looked up at the concern
in her Guardians' faces.

The crushing weight of responsibility
threatened to smother her, and she could almost feel the walls of
the hole closing in around her. Struggling to stay calm, she
reached into the rock, looking for any imperfection, any flaw she
could exploit. Close to the surface, she found an almost
imperceptible hairline crack, and her hopes soared.

She concentrated on the crack and focused on
her target point. She hefted the staff and struck the bedrock hard,
large chunks of stone shattering among the sparks. There was a long
way to go, but she had made some progress.

"You'd best hurry, Catrin. The tribes are
growing hostile," Benjin said.

As she leaned down to look closely at the
rock, her fish carving fell from her shirt and hung just below her
face. She pulled the leather thong over her head and held the
carved fish in one of her palms, wondering if she could draw energy
from it. She remembered how the carving had grown hot enough to
burn her leg when she slammed the ground with power, and she
wondered if she hadn't been drawing from it then. The carving had
appeared to recharge itself when kept in the light, and her gut
said she had just stumbled onto its secret.

Grasping the staff in both hands, she held it
aloft, the carving wedged between the staff and her palm. She
centered herself as the carving grew warm, and she felt energy
begin to flow into her. Her senses heightened as the power coursed
through her veins, and as it entered her, she sensed it leaving the
carving. Knowing she had no time to waste, she used all her
strength and all her emotion to drive the staff into the bedrock,
striking it with such force that the blow sent shockwaves echoing
through the valley.

The bedrock gave way as she reached the
bottom of her massive swing, and she fell forward for an instant as
a large section collapsed downward. Almost instantly, the force of
the trapped water sent the broken rock soaring into the air. Catrin
fell back as the staff was ripped from her grasp by a huge column
of water, which shot high into the night sky.

Catrin scrambled backward out of the hole,
the powerful spray buffeting her as she clawed her way to safety.
She retreated from the water's fury, and the Arghast backed away
before her in fear and reverence. Vertook stared at the fountain,
dumbstruck.

Chaos ensued as the enormous shockwave sent
loose rocks and stone tumbling down into the valley. Several people
were struck, the horses panicked, and men scrambled to reach them
to prevent the frightened animals from injuring themselves.

They all stared at the towering fountain with
amazement and disbelief. When the height of the fountain did not
dwindle, they slowly began to believe that they were in the
presence of the Herald.

Catrin watched as the water fell from the sky
and seeped into the sand. The sand became saturated, and soon water
would fill this end of the valley.

Benjin, Chase, Osbourne, and Strom moved to
her side, overjoyed. They speculated on how long the fountain would
last. Catrin was physically drained, mentally exhausted, and wanted
nothing more than sleep. The carved fish still in the palm of her
hand looked terrible; it was chalky to the touch, and its surface
was again dull.

She leaned over and placed it back around her
neck. When she looked up, she found herself surrounded by kneeling
tribal leaders and tribesmen; even her Guardians knelt. Vertook was
in the front and center of the mass, and she realized that he alone
belonged to all three groups.