Of Gaea Read online

  “It was a good try. We’ll just have to try something else.”

  “We don’t have time for that. Give me the cane.”

  Sasha held it up and out but didn’t cross into the circle.

  Ari laughed as she took it from him. “A. The circle won’t hurt you. B. There’s more than one way to skin a deer.”

  “I take no chances.” His fingers brushed over hers. “Just find him.”

  Ari turned to the east where the fans laid. “He has to breathe.” She touched the cane to the ground and felt everything amplify.

  Sasha choked a cough.

  Ari glanced at him but his back was to her. His shoulders were shaking with what could only be mirth. She couldn’t help the grin.

  “In and out. Where does his breath fall?” She focused on the heartbeat of air. Thousands of heartbeats rang in her ears. “Leonidas. Where does his breath fall?”

  The air swirled again and a hundred breathes shared the air with Leonidas. Not only Tainted but Pure and Faithful. Even as she flowed with the air some breaths stopped suddenly and some labored and rattled to a stop. Death had claimed them. The fighting had already started. And now she knew where.

  Ari let the image go and turned to Sasha. “They’re in the clearing. There’s Tainted and Pure and people that feel like you and Nasya so I can only assume they’re Faithful to Gaea.”

  “Da must have called the Guild in. There is a Sparta in Wisconsin, Tennessee, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, and Ohio. Of course there’s one in Mexico, Canada, Greece. It’s not called Sparta in Japan or India but it still has the heart.”

  “There are some people there that aren’t Faithful but aren’t Pure or Tainted either. I don’t know what they’re doing. It’s only a matter of time before it bleeds into town. We need to contain it there. No more innocent deaths.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  Ari stepped out of the circle towards the woods. “NASYA!”

  She appeared instantly but not in the human façade. The Kirin stood at Ari’s side. She tossed her head and stamped her foot.

  Ari understood completely. She needed to be sure. She needed no doubts about what she was about to do. A single doubt could be her undoing.

  “We’re going in, and we’re getting him out. You‘ve got my back. That’s all I need. Let’s try to be stealthy about this. We don’t need any attention.”

  Sasha sighed. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

  Ari bristled. “The air isn’t really the best intelligence source. Do you want to know how many Tainted are up there? Thirteen. How many Pure? Twenty five. Spartans? Ten. Undeclared? Fifteen. Those are only the breathing bodies. I can’t tell you how many have died or what the terrain is covered with. That’s not how I saw it. We have to look first. We can’t really formulate a good plan without knowing what exactly needs done.”

  Nasya snorted.

  “We’ll stay hidden in the trees and take a look.” Sasha grabbed her arm before she could move. “If I have even the slightest doubt that you’ll not make it out okay, you’re not going in there.”

  Ari smiled at him. “Have a little faith.”

  He let go and Nasya dipped into the trees first, with Sasha and Ari right on her heels. Ari prayed they made it in time.

  The forest was quiet. Not even their running stirred any of its creatures. It was a clear sign that something was wrong. A sure sign that a larger predator was afoot.

  Ari didn’t immediately run. She walked at slowly first through the familiar trees and let her senses wake up to the woods. She walked until her hearing sharpened and her eyes could cut through the darkness. She let Gaea embrace her.

  Nasya made no sound as she ran ahead. No leaves or branches crunched under her hooves nor did any trees rustle with the breeze of her gallop. She was virtually invisible.

  Ari didn’t make a sound either when she finally ran after her. She knew instinctively when to jump or duck. She knew where every creature dwelled and waited for the night to end. It was her connection to Gaea and something she had learned in the forests with Nasya. The longer she was part of the world, the more she would feel and see.

  Sasha wasn’t as quiet. He wasn’t noisy either, but Ari could hear his footfall and his breathing. She could hear the hard leather that wrapped the hilt of his sword creak as his hand wrapped around it.

  Movement in a tree had her firing an arrow before she could think twice about it. No scream came from her target but something heavier than a forest animal hit the ground. Nasya reached whatever it was first and stomped her hooves nervously.

  When Ari reached her side, she saw what made her nervous. The body was flaking into pieces like a burnt log would. The area around the arrow was completely black. Ari yanked it out and put it back in the quiver.

  Ari walked a few paces away, for Nasya’s sake, and then huddled in conference.

  “How did you know it was Tainted?” Sasha asked, “And can you tell if there are anymore?”

  Ari thought about his question. Thought about what had caught her attention and made her fire. Her actions had been automatic but something had to have triggered them.

  “It didn’t belong.” She said slowly as she dissected the memory. “Everything that is part of Gaea or Faithful to her is connected to a single source, but it wasn’t. It was… void, for lack of a better term.”

  Nasya dipped her head in agreement.

  “You knew he was up there?” Sasha hissed at Nasya.

  An equivalent to a shrug passed over her. She apparently thought Ari could handle it. Or Sasha would see it eventually.

  “We’re about a hundred yards away from the edge of the trees. It’s only logically they have sentries.” Ari stated in a hushed calm she didn’t really feel. “I don’t sense anything else nearby so we can assume they’re spread thin.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”

  “Let’s just go take a look. We’ll have to make a game plan from there.”

  “Stay close. And the minute I tell you to get back, you do it.”

  “Alright, Mr. Bossy.”

  They crept slowly to the edge of the trees. Sasha took the front and Nasya stayed next to her. As they got close enough to see, Ari felt something that had her reach out to grab Sasha’s arm and stop him.

  He looked at her with his head tilted in question but he didn’t say anything. Ari sidled up next to him and looked around for what had disturbed her. When she found it she pointed.

  On the ground just outside the trees was blocky, ugly script. It was burned into the soil. And followed the tree line and disappeared in both directions.

  Sasha nodded that he saw it.

  Ari pondered what would happen if she crossed into it. It was at that moment she realized she still didn’t hear anything. Being this close to the clearing, she should have heard sounds of fighting.

  She looked at Sasha and cupped her ears.

  He shook his head and pointed back to the script.

  It’s a containment.

  Nasya’s sudden voice in her head nearly jolted her into the clearing. Ari looked at her and tapped her chest exaggeratedly.

  Nasya rolled a single shoulder nonchalantly. She brushed up against Ari. Sasha has no gift to hear. But you can. It’s not just her you can hear if you choose. But you know this already. The writing is holding everything that happens inside the clearing in the clearing, for now. If it’s broken by a Pure, everything will revert to the object’s closest state of peace. If the Tainted break it whatever happens in the clearing becomes reality.

  And if I break it? Ari wondered but wasn’t sure if she wanted the answer.

  Either Nasya didn’t hear the thought, or she decided not to answer.

  Sasha tapped her arm then pointed when she looked at him.

  The meadow slightly inclined towards the center. It wasn’t steep enough to even call a hill. A single stair was higher than the incline. They had come here often enough th
at she already knew that. It wasn’t what Sasha was pointing at. What was at the crest of the incline was what he wanted her to see.

  Besides the variety of silently battling warriors, and men dressed in suits, women dressed in club wear, and the outfits varied as widely as their owners; a pillar that hadn’t been there before overlooked it all. Chained to the pillar, his arms stretched above his head, was Leonidas.

  He looked ill was her first thought. He was paler than she remembered and the blood that dripped down his temple was new. His eyes were closed, and the space between breaths was long and labored as if the next one may not come. He didn’t struggle against the bonds that held him, but rather slumped letting them bear all his weight. His wrists bled where the chain contacted with skin.

  Ari’s heart skipped a beat and she thought for a second everything went black before clearing up again. “Leonidas.”

  It had been spoken in a hushed voice. So hushed that Sasha hadn’t moved, so she knew he hadn’t heard her slip.

  Leonidas’s eyes opened and though his head didn’t move, she watched him scan the area then lock eyes with her. His eyes were dead. He had no hope left.

  He glanced down at his feet then directly across from him. Then he looked back at her. When he did it again she followed his eyes.

  At his feet something else was burned into the ground. From outside the ring she couldn’t tell what it was, but she nodded to him letting him know she saw it. Across from him was a boulder but it wasn’t the boulder that caught her eye. Rather it was the fact that whatever protected the meadow went around the boulder on the inside of the meadow rather than dipping into the trees.

  “I will get you out.” Ari murmured. Then stepped back and tapped Sasha’s arm. She made the follow her gesture and silently jogged back the way they had come.

  When they could no longer see the clearing through the trees Ari stopped and crouched. Sasha mimicked her and Nasya stood close enough for her to lean against Ari.

  “Do you know what they were doing to him? There’s something wrong with him.” Ari asked mutedly.

  Sasha looked away a moment and sighed. She felt his tension and anxiety in that one action.

  “It looked like they’re…well… like your mother. Like Damia.”

  She shook her head in confusion. “Like my mother?”

  He nodded slowly. “They’re poisoning him. So they can use him, the way they use your mother. Ari, do you really think you’re the only Goddess? Who do you think the Tainted and Pure follow? Why do you think they’re not here yet?”

  Anxiety and fear gripped their cold, stony fingers around her throat. Ari couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe.

  Her mother’s letter came to mind. She had spoken of having fewer and fewer lucid moments. Ari remember her in the institution, the only time she had gotten to see her; Lyris hadn’t been lucid, but still a part of her had remained. Though Ari imagined it was only a fraction of the woman she had been before.

  “Then we have no time to waste. I have an idea. Follow me. Be the forest.” Ari turned and moved in the direction that Leonidas had pointed her to. There was a reason he wanted her to see it, and she was going to find out why.

  Every so many yards Ari stopped and had to breathe slowly. Anxiety filled her, but she didn’t think it was just the anxiety over Leonidas’s fate that stole her breath. She felt like she was in Erelah’s shop again. She felt it pulling at her, draining her.

  Ari didn’t see or hear the men that ran towards the clearing, but Sasha did. He grabbed her arm, and before she could protest, she was face down in the dirt with him right beside her and Nasya in front of them.

  When the forest was silent again Sasha turned and looked at her. “You don’t look any better than Leonidas. And there’s something wrong with your senses. This isn’t good. We should turn back.”

  Ari shook her head. “I’m,” the lie died on her lips. She couldn’t lie to him. “I’ll be fine. I want to get this over with.” Ari stood slowly and waited for her swaying head to readjust before returning to their objective.

  The longer they tarried near the protective barrier the more Ari felt disconnected. Like she was short circuiting or something. The barrier had to go, before anything could be done. Before something irreversible happened.

  The boulder was just a stone. A stone, that she didn’t remember ever being there. When Ari placed her hands on it she knew it hadn’t. Leonidas may not be able to be the elements literally, but he could manipulate them to his will when he chose.

  She slid down its face and studied the script that came up to it then around the front of it.

  “What are you thinking?” Sasha put his back to the rock and watched the trees carefully.

  “I’m thinking it looks a lot like Gaea’s script.” Ari murmured as the patterns swirled in and out of focus on her. It was the swirl that brought on the thought and the reactive thought.

  “So?” Sasha hissed.

  She stepped back far enough that she could write in the dirt. Ari tapped Sasha to move when she reached where he stood and he did without comment.

  “Write faster.” He muttered.

  Ari would have loved to comply but she couldn’t. When she reached the Demon’s Tongue the ground flared angrily as she dragged the cane over the existing script. She had to alter three words to finish her command but the cane dragged through it like she was trying to write in dried cement.

  Ari felt it fight her as she changed the lettering. The dark sickness that she recognized as Tainted beat at her mercilessly. Nausea and dizziness swamped her senses.

  Ari blocked it out. She forced it not to matter. She could hear Sasha curse and metal on metal sounds, but they were distant and out of focus. Nothing mattered but her three alterations. She dropped to her knees as she neared completion. She would finish. Tainted be damned.

  Ari collapsed on the finished stroke. Her eyes were out of focus; shadows and blurred colors moved in front of her. She wasn’t sure if they would clear, but she could hear. One ear pointed to the sky and the other pressed against the soil.

  She listened to the heart beat of the earth. Her heart timed with it and she closed her eyes. Her heart wasn’t the only heart that matched her rhythm. Sasha’s did. Nasya’s did. Hundreds of others nearby all beat to Gaea’s rhythm. Thousands across the mountain range. Hundreds of thousand across the earth.

  It wasn’t the only thing she could hear. Ari heard the prayers of the weak. The pleas of the sick. The hopes for the future.

  All asked for through Gaea’s grace and blessing. Through her. The world needed her. Ari was Gaea. She was her, and then the realization of everything she had been looking for came into brutal clarity. She came back to herself with a jolt.

  Sasha crouched near her, as human Nasya shook her gently.

  “I’m alright.” Ari stood slowly, surprised that her words were more than a little under par. She was more than alright. She felt fully charged. “What happened?”

  “The circle broke. It was like watching glass shatter.” Sasha muttered. “You collapsed; we were attacked, I defeated them.”

  Nasya cut him a look.

  “With Nasya’s help.” He amended quickly.

  “Well then, let’s get in there.” Ari bent and retrieved the cane.

  “You’re insane. A group of Spartans just moved in. We’re not needed.”

  “Leonidas needs us. Let’s go.” Ari stuffed the cane in her quiver and pulled the bow off her shoulder. “Are you leading or following.”

  Sasha sighed, “I’ve got your back.”

  The clearing was chaos. If Ari hadn’t been so in tune with the earth she wouldn’t have been able to tell the sides apart. She didn’t know how they did either.

  Ari fired all arrows but one in the course of three feet. They were at a standstill and losing ground rather than gaining it.

  “Nasya, this isn’t working.” Sasha shouted to her.

  She nodded apparently understanding and transformed back to
her original self.

  Sasha dumped Ari onto Nasya’s back without preamble. “Go!” He slapped her flank and she reared and took off.

  “Sasha!”

  He gave Ari a brief salute then he was swallowed in the mass.

  You will see him again. Nasya informed. He’s too stubborn to die.

  Ari had never ridden on horseback and she doubted the frantic weaving and jumping Nasya did was actually how it felt. She clung like a bur to her mane of hair, and hoped she didn’t fall off and get trampled. Death by trampling was not her ideal way to go.

  Nasya ignored her discomfort. She jumped, dodged, twisted, and even kicked out at foolish mortals that thought they could stand in her way. She was something that hadn’t been seen in millennia, short of a catastrophic astronomical event, Ari didn’t think anything could stand in Nasya’s way.

  At the crest Nasya dumped Ari unceremoniously to the ground and then turned to face the fight. She put herself between Ari and the fighting. It left Ari to deal with Erelah.

  Erelah’s back was to her as she chanted in a strange tongue. Surprisingly, it and her pentagon of evil didn’t affect Ari. She silently drew the cane out of the quiver.

  “You are too late false Goddess. You have lost.” Erelah spoke as she turned to face her.

  Ari dragged the cane through the closest point altering the lettering as she did. She smiled sharply. “Doubtful.”

  “What are you doing?” Erelah shrieked and lunged. She miscalculated. She wasn’t a warrior, but an old Priestess, already twisted and broken through her magic.

  Ari was a warrior trained by a Spartan. Tempered by a Creature of Gaea. She drew the blade from the cane and let Erelah’s lunge carry her onto it.

  “I pretend at nothing.” Ari countered, as shock and fear covered Erelah’s face.

  She yanked the blade from the old woman as she collapsed and turned to face the fading pentagram.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Leonidas groaned.