People's Champion (2 page)

He led me past the halls and conference rooms
that had been turned into classrooms for the girls and into the
instructors’ break and administrative area at the end of the
hallway.

I entered the break room, and Father
Cristopolos closed the door behind me. The other priests were
gathered in front of a television.

“It’s everywhere,” Father Cristopolos said in
a tight voice. With a sturdy build and baldhead, he was the only
one of the priests who ever took me up on the offer to teach them
to fight.

“What’s everywhere?” I asked.

“This firestorm. The Gods are setting fire to
the world.”

Although critical of the intentions of
supernatural beings of any kind, even I had a hard time processing
this statement. He joined the others in front of the television and
I trailed more slowly.

Newscasters were panicked as
they reported on the fireballs raining from the heavens, and the
tickers at the bottom of the screen raced too quickly for me to
catch much at all. My reading was rusty, but I managed to make out
some words before returning my attention to the panicked woman
on
the
screen.

…
New York, LA, London,
Paris … fireballs in every major city
… the
ticker had read.

My body became tense, and my pulse raced. I
glanced upward, as if I could see the fireballs through the stone
roof.

“Is Lyssa safe here?” I heard myself ask
without being fully aware of anything beyond my shock.

No one answered.

I grabbed Father Cristopolos by the arm. “Is
Alessandra safe here?” I demanded, ready to snatch her and run as
far as I had to in order to protect her.

His eyes remained glued to the television,
but he nodded. “These will protect us.” He lifted the red cord he
and the other priests wore at their waists. I didn’t understand
magic or the powers of the gods, but the perimeter of our forest
refuge was lined by the ropes, which were said to turn our home
into a blind spot. We were hidden from men and gods – everyone
except for our Titan benefactor, Lelantos, and our Olympian
benefactress, Artemis.

“Turn the channel!” Father Renoir urged.

Static was on the television. One of the
priests flipped channels with a shaky hand, until he found another
news station. This one lasted five minutes, the next two, and the
third a full ten minutes before it, too, followed in the footsteps
of the rest of them and disappeared.

Silence filled the break room. No one was
willing to say what I was thinking, that we could end up the only
people left on the planet. My hands trembled from emotions, and I
stared at the blank television screen, willing someone else to pop
up and tell us what was going on.

Of everyone, Father Cristopolos was the first
to react.

“Renny, bring the girls in. Francois, cut the
cable, internet and phone feeds to the girls’ rooms. Until we know
what to tell them, we’re going to hide this,” he said.

My first instinct had been the opposite, to
warn the girls about what was going on. Father Cristopolos was
shrewd and smart and had been elevated to the rank of leader long
before I met the priests. He was also more aware of the dangers
facing Alessandra. I trusted his instincts in his area.

The two priests hurried out of the break
room, and Father Cristopolos returned his gaze to the blank
television screen.

“Herakles, would you be willing to check our
boundaries? Ensure none of them are hit by fire?”

“Of course,” I said instantly.

“I plan on seeking out Artemis. I don’t know
if she’ll be willing to talk to me after all this, but …” He
drifted off, and bewilderment expressing the same shock we were all
experiencing crossed his features. “This can’t be the end!”

“It is not what was foretold,” one of the
remaining priests agreed. “But I can’t explain it either.”

Their belief in a prophecy involving
Alessandra was yet another of the differences we shared. I believed
no one, not even a god, could overrule my free will, and I didn’t
give much credence to the existence of gods anyway. For the most
part, the priests believed in the gods and free will, with the
exception of Alessandra. They believed her fate to be something
that had been determined ten thousand years ago.

Which had always run counter to my own
beliefs. It was pure madness to believe everyone had free will –
except for one person. Everything around me, and everyone in my
life, had one purpose: to protect Lyssa. I shared this priority,
even if I didn’t always understand or agree with the reasoning
behind why the priests did what they did.

“I’ll go now,” I said when no one else spoke.
“I need to grab some supplies from my shed.”

“Cell reception will be coming down soon, if
it hasn’t been knocked out by the fireballs,” Father Cristopolos
said. “I know you plan for everything. Do you have backup
communications? Something analog or line of sight?”

I had never asked, but I often suspected
Father Cristopolos had been in the military at one point. His easy
command and pragmatism elevated him above the other priests, who
were often too scholarly for me to relate to at all. “I do,” I
said. “I’ll bring you a radio.”

Without waiting for his response, I hurried
out of the break room. The girls lived in rooms on the second
through fourth stories of the manor house, while the priests and I
shared the two guest cottages tucked behind the house. I had taken
over one of the maintenance sheds as well to store gear and
emergency supplies.

Exiting the orphanage, I heard the girls
complaining to Father Renny how much they didn’t want to go to bed
yet. Unlike usual, I didn’t stop to help. The idea we could be on
fire soon if I didn’t check the ropes around the boundaries
possessed me with the kind of fear a father felt knowing his family
was in danger. With jerky movements, I snatched everything I
thought I’d need from the storage shed and slung a pack with
weapons, water and more of the red ropes onto my back.

I ran a radio into the break room quickly
before racing into the forest.

In all my feats at the Olympics, I had never
felt the need to move as fast as I did now. I tore through
underbrush, vaulted over logs close to my height, scaled the dirt
walls of ravines, and sloshed through streams as I headed to the
nearest point of the perimeter. By the time I was a few meters out,
I was panting and dripping with sweat – and I’d broken my own
record of the fastest time I’d run through the forest by nearly
half.

The scene before me held me mesmerized. I
didn’t need a flashlight to find the rope perimeter. On my side,
all was quiet and dark. On the other side, brilliant white light
had created a wall that prevented me from seeing anything beyond
it.

I stood, awed and fearful of the display, and
finally believing the priests that their red ropes actually did
something I could explain only as magic.

Rather than feel relieved to know the
fireballs couldn’t reach us, new urgency sent adrenaline spiking
through me, as I realized what would happen if any of the ropes
along the perimeter were damaged or missing. The girls knew better
than to mess with them, and I checked them routinely every week.
Sometimes, during a rainy spring like this one, heavy downpours
would push them out of place or animals drawn by the color would
try to take the bright cords to their dens or nests.

I moved along the edges of the woods making
up our home. The wall of light remained just outside the
boundaries. I drew as close to it as I dared. Expecting the
brilliant white light to be hot, I was surprised not to feel heat
radiating off it. When I was close enough, I could almost see what
lay on the other side of the light, as if I were peering through an
opaque curtain. Morbid curiosity about what was happening outside
our protected home made me want to step through the wall, but my
primary priority was ensuring we all survived.

Setting aside my intrigue, I spent the next
twelve hours racing along the perimeter. The western, northern and
eastern boundaries were all secure, all hedged by brilliant white
light.

But at the southern boundary … no wall of
light, and no fireballs, as far as I could see. I ventured past the
rope perimeter, past a small lake and into the campground adjacent
to our land, and paused, listening. Fireballs didn’t streak across
the night sky here either. The orphanage’s grounds were protected
by the priests’ magic, though I couldn’t explain why no fire fell
south of our home. The newscasters claimed the fireballs were
everywhere in the world, so how did none touch the quiet forest
before me?

Unable to explain it, I shivered and stepped
back inside the boundaries.

I radioed in my latest observations,
lingered, and then turned away.

I returned to my starting point, at the
western boundary. Only then did I wriggle out of the rucksack and
drop to my knees, thoroughly exhausted from the pace I’d forced
myself to endure.

The wall of light remained despite the light
of dawn overtaking the skies above. The sun rose, and the fire
continued to fall. Fatigued, I pulled out my canteens and downed
the contents one of them before I ate half a dozen energy bars.

“Herakles?” Father Cristopolos called over
the radio I’d slid into my cargo pocket. “Are you well?”

I pulled the radio free and sat with my back
to a tree truck, eyes on the wall of white surrounding the forest.
“Here,” I said into the receiver. “Perimeter is intact.”

I expected him to make a remark about the
magic of the ropes that I’d openly criticized for years. The
priests had steadily refused my insistence we emplace a legitimate
security system. I understood why now.

“We may have another problem,” Father
Cristopolos said instead.

I tensed, alert and ready to run back to
protect the girls.

“Artemis contacted us and said we’re in a
safe zone that extends down through southern Maryland. She also
said she won’t be able to contact us again for some time,” the
priest said.

“Is that such a bad thing, since her kind did
this?” I responded.

There was a long pause before Father
Cristopolos spoke again. “I can’t see her doing this,” he said
quietly. “There must be another explanation.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is that the problem or is
there another one?”

“Our boundaries stop supernatural discovery
and creatures from entering. They don’t stop animals. We’ve had
five cougars and a bear cross through the greens this morning.”

I hadn’t paid any attention to the wildlife
during my mad run around the perimeter. Suddenly, I wished I’d
taken notice of any unusual activity among the wild animals
inhabiting our forest. It made perfect sense for animals to flee
the fiery territory towards us. They had the instincts to guide
them to safety.

“Four-legged refugees,” I said. “Are the
girls okay?”

“We’re keeping them inside today,” Father
Cristopolos replied. “Our generators are down. Our weapons of
choice are faith in the Old Ways and civil unrest. No one is
volunteering to face bears to reset the generators manually.”

I snorted, amused at how he chose to describe
their intent of overthrowing the gods one day. Men as devoted as
they were to their cause would do whatever it took to see their
purpose through. No part of me doubted the priests would use the
weapons they scorned, if their cause were threatened. “I’ll go
now,” I said. “Keep everyone inside until I clear the area. Lock
the doors.”

“Understood.”

Tucking the radio away, I stood. For the
first time since arriving to the forest refuge, I didn’t feel safe,
despite the magic boundaries repelling the gods’ wrath. I pulled
out two hunting knives from my pack and placed one at my waist and
the other at my thigh.

After downing another canteen of water, I
adjusted my pack on my back and set off at another hard run. I
reached the manor and stopped inside the greens – the vast lawns
surrounding the mansion – to look for animal paw prints. Sure
enough, I spotted the evidence of the visitors Father Cristopolos
had spotted and quite a few more. An entire herd of deer had moved
through the greens, along with a dozen predatory animals as well as
squirrels and rabbits.

Twisting to squint in the direction they’d
gone, I realized all of them were headed south.

They sense the safe
zone,
I thought to myself. If that were the
case, then we weren’t likely to see any of the dangerous animals
hanging out around the manor, a threat to the girls. But, the
migration might also take a while. I respected wildlife more than I
did the gods, and I understood animals better than humans. They
operated out of instinct. Rarely did that instinct tell them to
attack humans if they weren’t being threatened.

I stood, pensive, and gazed towards the south
for a moment. The wildlife right now was feeling threatened, which
made them dangerous. A curfew would be in order for the girls until
the forest creatures settled, which could take a week or more,
depending on how long the fireballs fell. Fortunately, the animals
appeared to be taking a direct route and following a set path past
the manor house. As long as everyone in the orphanage knew to avoid
this path, they would hopefully be safe.

I finished circling the greens to ensure my
initial theory was correct and found a second, well-trodden path
along the eastern side, opposite the first. The animals were making
an effort to avoid people, which was a good sign.

When satisfied with what I’d learned, I
radioed the information to Father Cristopolos and then continued on
my mission of returning power to the orphanage. The hidden
generators and underground power station were located on the
southeast corner and the lake where we drew our drinking water on
the southwest.