Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (39 page)

I pushed a hank of sweaty hair out of my face.

I didn’t want to be powerful. I mean, it’d be great if my gift were healing, but producing radiation — there wasn’t anything nice about that. More power just meant more destruction.

I knew I was stronger than most of the others — everyone I’d asked had seen through earlier than I did. I would just have to hope I wasn’t that much stronger.

In the end, Cordus didn’t treat me better. He messed with my head and threw me away. Maybe that’s a good sign.

I sighed and tried to shift into a more comfortable position. Sleep was a long time coming.

I woke up a bit after sunset.

I looked over to see if Mizzy was up and found Williams instead.

Right. That happened.

He was studying the fine layer of powder on the back of his hand. I looked at my arm. I couldn’t see anything, but when I rubbed my fingers together, I could definitely feel grit.

“If Mizzy drew on me, she might be able to kill all the algae.”

Williams gave me a fed-up look.

“I’d rather take my chances with her than turn into a statue.”

“Last resort.” He leveled a stare at me. “Do not let her touch you.”

He got up and left the tent.

I lay there for a few more seconds, angry and frustrated.

I couldn’t take matters into my own hands without putting Mizzy at risk. Major risk.

I rolled over and pressed my face into my bedroll.

Truth be told, now that I’d slept on it, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I should work with her, anyway.

Gwen had once told me that the biggest mistake of all is thinking you won’t make mistakes.

A big part of survival is being prepared for your own errors
, she’d said.

She’d been talking about redundancies and fail-safes in tactical planning, but I thought it went deeper than that. People always think the law of averages doesn’t apply to them. But that can’t be the case — we can’t all be above average. I knew I wasn’t. I made plenty of mistakes.

So, sure as I was that Williams was making the mistake here, I had to admit I could be wrong about Mizzy, and he could be right. The chance might be small, but it was enough to give me pause.

I sighed and sat up.

The others were stirring as well. Not a single one of them would look me in the eye.

Kevin and Terry started breaking down the tent.

“Leave it,” Williams said.

I guess we wouldn’t be stopping again.

Everyone refilled their waterskins from the supply the camels carried and grabbed some food. Then we mounted up, got back on the road, and picked up a good pace.

Williams led. Terry and Kevin kept their lights trained on the sides of the road. Mizzy took up the rear, scanning the road behind us. Ida and I rode together in the center. The other caravaners ranged around in a less organized way. No one talked.

The land was as still and silent as ever. The only sounds were the camels’ calls, the muffled thumps of their padded feet, and the creaking of the saddles.

I understood the silence — only the dead were left here, now. The dead and those hibernating within the dead.

In the wee hours, Ida pulled up and called for help.

Our group circled around her. The other travelers slowed momentarily, then exchanged looks and kept right on going.

Ida’s skin looked weirdly gray in the flashlights’ beams. “I can’t move my fingers.” Her voice was tight, scared.

Mizzy brought her camel in close and poured water over Ida’s hands, scrubbing at them. The water wicked away almost instantly, as though the gray coating were sucking it in.

Williams told Ida to put her left hand on the saddle horn.

She did as he said. I heard an impact and saw her hand jerk. She cried out in pain.

Williams must have hit her hand with a shaped barrier, like the ones he’d used to crush the dinos back in the jungle.

He tried a few more times. The crust gave off little clouds of powder, but it didn’t break.

Mizzy glanced at me. “If you’d let me —”

“No,” Williams said.

“You can draw on me,” Kevin said.

Mizzy looked at Williams. “Please let me try. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Don’t drain him. We need a tracker.”

Mizzy and Kevin kooshed their camels and got off. Mizzy took hold of Ida’s ankle. Kevin stood next to Mizzy, touching her arm.

Mizzy must’ve done a major working because Kevin gasped and staggered into Ida’s camel. Mizzy stepped back, shaking her head.

Ida tried to move her hands. “Not enough?”

“No,” Mizzy said. “They’re incredibly strong. I’d need a lot more power to kill them.”

Williams drew a knife from his belt. For a horrible moment, I thought he was going to stab Ida — a mercy killing, or something — but instead he cut through her camel’s lead rope, separating it from her stony fist. He tossed the end of the rope to Terry, and moved us out.

He pushed the camels a little faster, galloping them for thirty- or forty-minute stretches, then walking them for ten to rest.

The sandy stone on Ida’s skin continued to thicken. It clearly caused her increasing pain. It also reduced her ability to move in response to her camel’s gait. Eventually, Mizzy and Terry gave up on the flashlights and began riding beside her to make sure she didn’t fall off.

It was a grim trip.

By sunrise, we were closing in on the ligature. It had taken us a night and a half to cover roughly seventy-five miles. But the camels now refused to go faster than a walk. They were tired.

At least they didn’t seem to be feeling the effects of the algae. Maybe they hadn’t ingested any. Or maybe they just didn’t sweat much.

Eventually, we reached the edge of the ligature town.

Ida was hunched over, her breathing fast and shallow. We’d had to stop a few hours back and rope her legs to her saddle — her body had become too stiff to stay on the camel.

Kevin’s and Terry’s fingers had locked up too. Williams was crusted up to the elbow, and had lost the use of his feet.

Mizzy and I were leading all the camels, but we were both starting to have trouble moving our fingers.

In short, things weren’t looking good.

I don’t know what the others expected to find in the town, but I’d thought there’d be people there who could help us — maybe even a healer. But no one answered my calls. The place was empty.

We stopped in the central square to retie Ida — she was starting to slide to the left, and this might be our last chance to fix it. My fingers were stiff and powdery. It felt like I was wearing thick leather gardening gloves that had accidentally been put through the washing machine. Except instead of being roomy, they were as tight as latex.

Terry got off and clumsily pushed Ida into place while Mizzy and I fumbled with the ropes.

After we were done, Mizzy turned to Williams, who was waiting impatiently on his camel.

“Please,” she said, “let me try with Beth. If she has enough capacity, I can heal everyone.”

Williams shook his head.

“I swear, I won’t take any more than I need for the healing.”

He ignored her.

She turned on me angrily. “You don’t have to obey him. He’s your escort, not your master.”

“He said he’d kill anyone who touched me. I believe him.”

“Nonsense. He’s not going to murder me.”

“Yeah,” I said, “he is.”

He would and he could — easily. She might be stronger than him, but the moment she tapped her power deeply, that youth-working would break, and she’d be 104. No way was she coming out of that fight a winner.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “This is an emergency. The rules have changed.”

Last resort
, Williams had said. I looked at him. I could tell from his eyes that the rules had not changed. Not that one, anyway.

“You’re wrong,” I said. “Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

What we needed to do was get to Kye Wodor, and fast.

I mounted my camel and, with a lot of urging, got it on its feet. I collected Williams’s and Terry’s camels and the pack string and headed out of the town square. Mizzy followed with the others. She was crying with frustration. Each tear left a powdery track down her face.

We followed the narrow street to the ligature.

I half-expected something to stop us — surely we wouldn’t be able to escape this place so easily. But nothing happened. We rode unimpeded through the ligature to the puffy clouds and lush vegetation of Gold Rush, leaving the dead stratum behind.

Ninety percent humidity had never felt so good.

We’re still in big trouble
, I reminded myself.

A clear path led away from the ligature, but not for very far — travelers took too many different routes around the ephemeral lakes and ponds for a single road to form.

Mizzy brought Kevin forward. He’d be able to retrace our path back to Kye Wodor.

Williams made a noise. I looked back at him, and he did it again. He was trying to say something.

I wanted to ignore him and head for the city at high speed, but the man didn’t speak frivolously. It was probably important.

I slid down, kooshed his camel, and pulled myself up on his saddle so I could get my ear right by his mouth. I still couldn’t understand.

Why the hell hadn’t he told me whatever it was earlier?

Finally, the fourth time he said it, I understood: “Callie.”

“Come on,” Mizzy said, her voice catching. “We have to go!”

I looked at Williams. “Water? You think Callie was talking about this?”

His eyes said,
Yes
.

I weighed it. He knew Callie. He had a lot more experience with her visions than I did.

Then again, we had two other possible interpretations in play — “water” could stand for Mizzy or Blue Seas.

Shit
.

“Okay. But if this doesn’t work, I’m letting Mizzy draw on me. Don’t you dare kill her.”

Not bothering to wait for an answer, I told Kevin to lead us to the nearest water.

The first lake we came to was being grazed by a herd of enormous gray-feathered dinos mixed in with big, mooselike deer. Oh well, they’d have to share.

I dismounted and waded into the water. When I sat down, it came up almost to my neck. I started rubbing my hands and forearms gently.

“Mizzy, get in here.”

“You’re wasting time! We already tried washing it off.”

“Not with this much water. Come on.”

Swearing under her breath, she kooshed her camel and waded in. We both sat there, rubbing our hands.

The closest dino watched us with the vague curiosity of a tiny-brained creature. Then it dipped its long neck and pulled up a mouthful of water plants.

“It’s working,” Mizzy said, sounding stunned.

I raised my hands. The chalky coating looked thinner. As I watched, a hairline crack traveled down the length of my left index finger. Papery bits of stone dropped away into the water.

“Let’s get Ida,” I said.

“No, we have to do the guys first. We’re not strong enough to carry Ida in and keep her head above water.”

I rubbed my hands together. There was a slight grittiness, there, but the stiffness was gone.

Mizzy climbed out of the water and helped Kevin off his camel. I went and got Terry. Once their hands were usable, they got Ida off her camel and carefully lifted her into the water. Mizzy and I sat behind her, propping her up. Then the guys got Williams.