"Do not try touching the fence!" Peesee said behind her. "Or you will die."
"Why? Is it, uh, Tainted?" Ossa's eyes lit up and she extended her hand towards the spikes. How do you Touch a Vessel that hurts?
"NO!" The young man grabbed her hand and dragged her back bodily. "Are you crazy?" His voice had gotten hysterical now. "I told you not to touch it!"
"Not Tainted, no. Just electrified. Fry you in a second." The tall man that had stood up for her earlier was watching them with interest. "Bzzzt!" he added, imitating the sound of electricity and shaking his arms for effect.
"What artistic talent, Teajay!" said one of the others. "Didn't know you had it in you." This caused a lot of sniggers around.
They giggle like little girls, thought Ossa. "How do you get through if you can't touch it?" She said aloud.
"That's not for you to know, crazy girl. Hood her, Teajay!" The fat man had come up behind her and held her steady as the tall one slipped a dark cloth over her head.
"Is that necessary?" It was Peesee's voice. "She's just a girl."
"Can't breach protocol, private." Ossa frowned at the word. What was private? The fat one ranted on about how dangerous she was.
"And she sounds like a bear. Gives me the creeps!" This was the one that thought she was a witch. She smiled under the cloth as someone lifted her up. They were afraid of her, afraid of her voice, of her people, of what she might do. They didn't know anything and yet they were afraid.
But why? She thought as they carried her through the darkness.
~~~
The Gathering was a mess. Hira walked between the wounded and the bodies of the fallen. They won't have their last Binding, she thought. Why do they attack us here? We don't have anything of value...
"Wrong there." The outsider stood up from his spot next to an empty bedsheet. His face showed he was nearing complete exhaustion.
"What do we have, Hugo?" Hira fixed him with an angry gaze. "We don't have food, nor valuables, nor Bound weapons or any unique pre-Question items. And now we have even less." She spread her hands around, trying to capture all the pain that surrounded them, to pull it away. These were her people. "We are now less." She finished bitterly.
"Ah, see, now you've hit the nail straight on." He looked around and sighed. "I don't think I can do another Binding without running the danger of answering 'yes' myself."
"Keep off it then. The people that could think straight enough to answer correctly did it at first light. You'll be layering only confused and pained spirits on now." And those are not the spirits that kept this place together this night. "Do you mean to say that they wanted to clear us out?"
"Yes. This one, the tall guy in the brown coat, has been busy lately. They also collected slaves from our small ones," he whispered the last words, an unusual gesture for the man Hira knew, "but the main reason was removing us from this spot."
"How do you know this?" She'd wondered many times at Hugo's ability to know what the chained and poor souls wanted.
"I have ways. I'm about to show you one now, if you are willing to leave for a few days. A week at most."
"And leave them without an elder? This could break them!"
"They're already broken. Look around you, girl!" This drew some angry stares from the people nearby.
Hira's face was made of stone. "You never care about the people, do you?"
"People aren't the important part. The whole damn world is. It's not something you can evade, or miss completely. I'm just having the big picture, all the time."
"And it has made you cynical to the point of being antisocial." She was now looking at the people again. She couldn't let her attention wander for long.
"Never made me wrong, though." He tapped her on the shoulder to make her look at him. "The broken crossing, in two hours. And tell these people to either prepare for another attack, or find a new home."
Hira watched him go out the gates and get out of sight. Then she fought away a shiver. He hadn't said the last sentence aloud.
~~~
The crossing was the intersection of two of the larger roads of the city. It was situated closer to the exact center where the largest banks and stores had been. Hira did not let her people come this way too often. There were too many wandering spirits that could shake a person hard. And distressed people had a hard time surviving in densely Touched areas.
She looked around the corner at the vehicles that waited patiently at the intersection. Their engines were running and the headlights were blazing visibly in the murk of the rainy day. The weather had turned from summer heat to summer storms.
She had to find Hugo. He wasn't in sight, which was good, taking into account the number of active Bound nearby. Although, she thought, cars aren't supposed to run pedestrians over, right? She was getting her courage together to just walk between the vehicles when they moved.
At first one of the directions cleared, just like they would before the Question. Then another started, the second in line actually honking to the first to make it move faster. Hira looked up at the street lights. They were long gone, and the road signs were covered by a thick layer of dust.
The last line of Bound snaked along and took a turn around the corner where she was hiding. She froze, not knowing whether to run or hide.
"Come on, no need to waste time creeping around!" Came the voice of the Speaker. Hira looked around the corner again and saw him standing in the middle of the intersection. Understanding crept through her mind.
"Did you do that?" She asked in amazement as she joined him. They started towards the city center at a brisk walk.
"Of course. Did you like the part with the honk?" He grinned at the look of confusion before she realized what he was saying. "It's my art form. The lonely theater or lost souls." Hira tried to detect any pride or joy in his voice, but failed. Hugo's face actually got angrier as he led her through the partly overgrown streets. One of the small city gardens had been nearby and the trees and grasses were retaking the place back slowly.
"Where are we going?" She asked. "Or am I on a vacation here?" This finally got him to smile, although his face was a bit strained.
"A tower on the other side of downtown. Another one of man's overcompensating achievements." He shook his head. "People love high places for some reason. Madness."
Hira walked on in silence for a while, but finally couldn't stop herself from saying what was on her mind. He's going to read it eventually anyway.
"Why," she said, "have you been so grumpy after the fight? It's almost like you didn't want us to live to see the light again."
"Why," he mimicked her, pausing for emphasis, "do you talk like a lass from a medieval computer game? 'See the light'? What kind of language is that?" He glanced at her to see if he'd managed to change the subject. Her pursed lips told him all he needed to know. She wasn't letting go of him now, and there was nowhere to run. "The truth is, as that is what you're obviously after, that I've come in resonance with your Gathering. Extreme resonance." He put all the emphasis he could on the first word.
Hira frowned, thinking this news through.
"Isn't that a good thing? You can feel the spirits better this way."
"Exactly! And as I am sensitive to them to begin with, simply standing in the building is like attending several rock concerts at once." He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "You do know what a rock concert was, right?"
"Yes, I do." Hira smiled. "But it's still a good thing."
"And look who's saying it. It's good for a Gardener. They become one with the Bound in their location, dissolve their soul into them to do what they do. I," he stabbed his chest with a bony finger, "have to be balanced. Enough resonance to feel them, and enough focus on my own existence to translate those feelings into human words. Something a Gardener doesn't need, and usually has difficulty with."
They passed through a pedestrian only zone, looking apprehensively to the sides. There were no apparent Bound nearby, but people simply walking along
the street did not leave much of a mark when the Question came. Not until you stepped on them anyway.
"Can you feel them here?" Asked Hira in a whisper.
"Yes. It's a free path." Hugo pointed ahead and they quickly continued. "And you see that you need help with sensing them yourself. That's because you lack resonance with them by definition."
"That's not true!" Hira frowned and touched the piece of piping at her belt. The familiar feel of her brother's spirit was comforting.
"Yeah, anyone can resonate with a single Vessel that they Touch every day. Even the Chained. But it's almost all you can do in that department. You have to be focused, extremely," the emphasis was back again, "in order to free the Bound from their current condition. You have to know what and where you are! You're like a mountain of willpower moving through a forest of jelly bean trees."
"That's a little too much, isn't it? You showed a lot of will in the fight too."
"You, my dear, will probably move oceans where I could barely spit right now, willpower-wise. That's why I have to regain some balance." He finished. Hira waited for more, but it seemed the lesson was over.
"How do you do that?" She ventured.
He shot her a sideways glance.
"By observing. Silently. Meditating. Don't tell me you don't have a trick for that." He cut her off when she made to speak. "No, really, don't. Don't need to know. Also, we're here."
Hira looked ahead and saw a tall tower or concrete and metal at the end of the street.
"I wonder how many are keeping it standing after all those years."
"No Gardener here though. So we'll have to challenge the gates." He frowned again and stared at the metal doors. "Let me do the talking."
###
Put in writing
The manor lay silent in the moonless night. Its high outer wall was topped with thick wooden stakes, held together by steel ropes. It was meant both to keep things outside, and men inside. Beyond the gardens the main building was nondescript and functional. There were no architect servants, and most Unchainable did not bother with looks. Looks did not give you rank, or power.
The group of intruders did not make a lot of noise while scaling the rock wall. They were all perfect climbers, trained by daily survival in the rocky mountain region beyond the hills. Their gear did not weigh them down either: they left it hanging on the wall for the way back. As they crept through the garden and around the main building they got out their weapons. There were no shining blades or noisy chains, both favored by the plainsfolk. It was very doubtful there was a single magical piece between the blackjacks and coal covered wrist clubs that they hefted. Magic was good and powerful when asserting yourself for rank. Real battle required functionality.
They reached the servant's quarters, their mass of dark gray and dirty black not drawing the attention of the unlucky guard fast enough. The lock was not a problem either. A couple of the attackers, one of them actually a woman, just pried the door off its hinges. There were no cries of alarm, yet. The group filed in the dark corridor, extinguishing the torches on the walls as they went. The last man was left at the door, taking the position and posture of the late guard.
There were no visible targets in the kitchens in which the corridor ended. Another of the assailants was left there as a guard. The rest split between the remaining doors leading out of the room without saying a word.
It was a quick search, punctuated by the weak cries of servants being incapacitated by the swift blows of the blackjacks. Finally there was a single door that wouldn't open. It was smashed to pieces.
The witch servant was standing in the middle of the room, her unshapely figure covered with a ragged dress and several shawls with symbols stitched into the cotton. She smiled and the few teeth she still had shone in the candlelight.
"What a pleasure!" Her deep voice made the dark figures of her attackers spring into action. The closest one raised his weapon and fell upon her, his face twisted in a manic grin.
Time stopped. The eyes of the witch burned with unbridled power.
TO BE...
The wave of the mental blast blew the first man away into nothingness and pushed the rest back into the wall and through the door. When they recovered a few moments later the witch was nowhere to be seen. A shout from outside told them the inhabitants of the manor had finally noticed something was wrong. Their time was up.
~~~
"Where would they go?" Hurt was walking through the servant quarters, surveying the damage.
The captain of the guards, who was trying to walk side by side in the narrow corridor, shrugged. "They are not the smartest servants we've had. They probably thought they could hide in the city, or even the hills. One of Lord Tung's patrols said they saw a group of men and women run in that direction. Unfortunately the patrol didn't follow them." His face showed exactly what he thought about Tung's guards. "Not the smartest patrol either."
"If you chased everyone that ran around you wouldn't have time to sleep, Feldor." Hurt looked through the empty common room they entered. Most of the clothes were left behind, the bedsheets were a mess. "I gather not all of them ran off?"
"No. Some put up a fight of sorts, like they didn't want to go. It's all a bit strange. We have a witness, the young cook, who says she saw a group of men enter from outside and free the rest."
"They were breaking them out?" Hurt looked at the unmade beds thoughtfully. "Bring her to the kitchen, I'll talk to her there in a moment."
She left the captain and hurried along the well-lit corridors. There were guards with torches at every second door now.
I am not yours to control, Kiara had said. Was that what she meant?
The door to the room of the old woman was missing. Hurt stepped over the pieces into the flickering candlelight. Everything was as she remembered it, except for the empty bed. No, she thought, there is something else here. It took her a second to find what it was.
The pile of sheets on the table was now covered in scribbles. She gathered the paper up and read the top page.
It all began with a question, the words went, and it will all end with one. The times we live in, the middle years of uncertainty as to what the correct answer is, they will not last forever. People adapt to everything. They are almost at the point of comfort again. And once comfort is reached, people will start asking questions themselves.
Hurt shuffled the pages. There were twenty or thirty sheets in total. She opened the writing in the middle and read as she walked towards the kitchen.
To not notice how the world has realigned itself would be foolish to the extreme. The ones that were dispossessed, oppressed, hurt, Hurt noticed how the word of her name was underlined, were left with the world to rule. They knew nothing of leadership, of honor, of equality. The twisted morals that had been forced upon them became their code of conduct. Power over people is everything, they say. It's all they knew, and it was all they needed to recreate society so that they felt good in it.
Hurt reached the kitchen and looked up to see the servant girl standing next to the captain of the guard. "Tell me what you saw." She ordered, while paging through the scrolls in her hands.
The voice of the girl trembled in fright. "They were many, ten or fifteen. They did not see me sleeping under the table. Well, I wasn't sleeping, really, I was..."
The poor men and women who think they can escape their destiny, instead calling themselves survivors and believing they preserve what's left of the pinnacle of human civilization...
"So I hid there and he walked around the room, looking in the pots..."
But there are those of us who will embrace the change of the world as the next step, the next challenge to the human spirit after society, war and technology... Hurt felt like she was lectured by the text, that it was now talking to her specifically, that it was written for her to read.
"They dragged them out, or carried them even, most of them hanging limply..."
Why do you think we make such good servants? The
page said to Hurt, and she wasn't sure that the words matched the writing any more. Her face throbbed painfully. Because we are weak? Let me correct you on this crucial point. It is because we teach our children acceptance. Hurt shook her head in disbelief. They taught their children to be better servants? It is the first thing we teach. Because you first have to accept the way the world works, in order to understand it. All the people, all the natural effects, all the reasons people love and hate each other for. You have to understand all of it, if you want to change the world. And this, Hurt suddenly felt colder inside, is what we teach our children. We teach them to change the world!
The pages burned her fingers and Hurt threw the improvised book in the fireplace beside her with a scream of rage. A cloud of smoke and sparks billowed out and covered the rug on the floor.
"YOU!" She screamed again, this time pointing at the shivering servant whose eyewitness story had been brought to an abrupt end. "Clean this up!"
Hurt walked out of the kitchen, her rage making everyone in her path cower and move away. The captain followed silently. He was used to her outbursts and waited patiently for the moment to pass.
In the fireplace the pages burned white with the heat, and the ink grew slowly red until it shone. The young servant that was still tending to the burned rug glanced at the book and stared. Then, mesmerized, she dropped the brush she was holding and slowly reached into the flames.
~~~
"It sounds to me like they were kidnapped, not broken out. Also, the guard's neck was broken. I don't think servants waste life when they can easily spare it." The captain tried to sound calm. The General had just told him that the whole estate is under wartime rules until further notice.
"Who will dare steal from me, Feldor? They are all too afraid. No," Hurt's eyes burned with hatred, "it was the servants. The Shamen!"
The two entered the reception room and their footsteps echoed from the barren concrete walls. A line of messengers stood to attention in the middle of the room, each of them carrying a leather bag filled with scribing materials. They were squires, not issued an artifact weapon yet, but training hard in case an opportunity to prove themselves appeared.