Huzzah

Despite the locked doors, the restaurant’s basement cool-room had been stocked with several cuts of meat, eggs, jars of preserved fruits and vegetables, and a courtyard garden had yielded early spring greens, luscious in their youth. The stove was gas fired, so heating a pan and searing a few tasty morsels was swift and rewarding.

The family returned to the garden satisfied both in their full bellies and hearts, and unburdened by having to clean up behind them. Braph had been ever so tempted to leave the stove burning, but Orinia had objected strongly. Still, their days in Quaver were clearly numbered. Returning regularly to gather more sap would be a costly exercise, and Braph found his mind investigating more deeply the idea of planting a tree in his own garden to see if it would eventually make a connection to this Taither one. Evidence to date suggested it might.

The tree showed no signs of having healed the holes from the morning’s endeavors. A shame, no doubt, but so be it. They had collected all the sap they were going to on this particular visit. The afternoon was spent gently simmering the sap beyond syrup and into it’s more transportable taffy form, and tolerating Orin’s intolerance for boredom yet again. After a couple of hours, the child got so bored he gave up and lay down for a snooze, and Braph’s work progressed much more pleasantly.

“You said Ieuan offered himself up to help. Had he heard about me?” Orinia had been piling their sap collecting gear neatly. They would leave everything behind. She came to stand beside Braph, watching the tiny bubbles distend and break the syrup’s surface.

Braph put an arm across her shoulders. “I think he always knew where you were. He just never came for you, not before Turhmos took you. Not that you needed rescuing from me, eh?” He squeezed her shoulder tentatively.

A smile briefly lifted the corners of Orinia’s mouth and disappeared again as she stared into the pot. “It was a confusing time,” she murmured.

“Indeed. I admit, as barely beyond my boyhood at the time, I perhaps didn’t treat you all that well in our earliest days. I’d like to think I have made it up to you.” He squeezed her to him again. “And intend to keep doing so.”

She looked at him then with true warmth.

Orin woke grizzly from an average doze, and of course hungry, at dinner time. By then, the pot’s contents had reduced to the lightly oiled taffy consistency Braph had sought, and they gathered it into a bowl for transport.

Braph promised Orin they would stop for a snack in a Turhmosian township, but he intended to return to his home that night.

***

Two days later, Eirian and Ivor returned with the tattooing supplies Rowan had requested, and Jonas joined Llew in managing physical discomfort and pain.

While Eirian and Ivor had been away, Rowan had constructed a wooden ‘tattooing station’ that provided a seat for Jonas and a frame for him to lean into allowing Rowan to sit behind him and tattoo the Syaenuk magic into his back. They set up outdoors to make the most of the natural lighting. No one on the farm had experience in tattooing, but Rowan was confident in his ability to learn. He’d painted plenty over the years, and created stamps to brand the leather shoes he’d cobbled over the years. With no need to create a design, simply looking to achieve a purpose, they opted for filling in the bare skin between the black swirls of Jonas’s existing gryphon tattoo.

With Llew working to tolerate the messages received through the tree while her blood flowed into a collection vessel, Jonas worked to tolerate the needles piercing his skin, leaving traces of Llew’s magic beneath. He hadn’t been tattooed since having the gryphon completed some eighteen months prior, and the first several pricks were the hardest to endure, but he soon grew accustomed and even found a strange pleasure in the pain for a time. After about an hour, both he and Rowan needed a break.

“I’ve filled in about three square inches there,” Rowan said, pressing the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other and stretching them back, then repeating for the other hand. “Injecting you is much easier, and perhaps good enough for maintaining your health, so we might keep doing that morning and night, but it will be interesting to see if you can use that tattooed power to do anything extra, and how long it lasts. So far, it’s sitting there and not disappearing into you, which is a great sign it can work for storage. Now we need to know if you can access it. Do you feel any different for it being there?”

Delwynn helped fit Jonas’s prosthetic so he could stand and stretch, and Sam offered his healing to ease Rowan’s aches, then went to an Ajnai to replenish.

Jonas reached behind him and ran the backs of his fingers over where Rowan had been working. That area felt different, of course. The skin remained slightly raised and it still throbbed. Overall? He couldn’t say.

“Turn around,” Rowan instructed.

Jonas turned his back to Rowan.

“What’s something Braph could do with his magic?” Rowan asked.

“Fly, control someone’s mind or body, torture them …”

“Flying doesn’t sound too harmful. I wonder how much power that uses.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Give it a try.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Llew said from her seat beneath the Ajnai.

“Now’s the time to try, though,” Rowan urged. “We’ve got a stockpile of magic, and time will never be more on our side than right now. If you hurt yourself, you can heal yourself, and we’ll know what we’ve got to work with. I hate to waste your suffering, Llew, but we have to risk it, or we might as well give up now.”

Rowan spoke sense. They had to know if the tattoo theory worked. He shared a grim look with Llew, which she ended swiftly, clenching against another bout of pain. She managed it well enough that she could spare him a quick nod before focusing in on her turmoil again.

Jonas rubbed his knuckles over the tattoo site again. “What if I start by healing this first—?” The skin felt smooth. “Oh, I think I just did … Is it still there?” He looked over his shoulder to Rowan.

“Yeah, it is.”

“It looks pretty.” Llew managed before sucking in a breath to manage a new wave.

“Pretty.” Jonas scowled. He didn’t mind Llew thinking so, but still … “I suppose it’s pink, and shiny.” He glanced from Rowan, who nodded, to Llew, who managed a smile while her eyes squeezed tight. Jonas sighed.

“Let’s find out how much flying takes out of you,” Rowan urged.

“Braph used a whole Syaenuk crystal to carry me most of the way from Rakun to Duffirk,” Llew fought to say. “He got two crystals from each draining. If that helps.” She puffed through several breaths to recenter. It cut through Jonas’s heart, but what could they do about it? She wanted him to live. He’d give that up if she let him, but if she was willing to go through this in the hopes of saving him, he wasn’t about to take that hope from her.

“It is. Thank you.” Rowan’s thoughts turned inward, likely making calculations. “I wonder if there are any continental maps on this farm. I’d like to compare the distance from Rakun to Duffirk with here to Taither. I have no clue off the top of my head.” He waved a hand at Jonas. “Obviously you won’t be doing that today. You’ll need twice as much as whatever it takes to get there to make it back, anyway. Just try, I don’t know, going up, or something.”

“Up.” Jonas looked up. There was a lot of up. Hopefully he could find some control. He didn’t want to fall from too high. Now what? What did Braph even do? He didn’t have wings, Jonas knew that much. He was also aware of far too many sets of eyes on him when he was about to make a fool of himself. Well, his dignity had excused itself right about when he entered Raena’s household. He could hardly expect it back while he remained infected.

Right, then. Flying. Perhaps he could start with a jump. From there, it was likely much like the rest of magic use: down to his imagination. He took a deep breath and imagined some sort of invisible platform a few feet above the ground. He just had to jump onto that. Maybe something less ambitious. A foot above the ground.

Another breath to shut out all eyes his way and focus on what he needed to do. He pushed off with his left leg and imagined.

And landed. Hard.

He managed to keep his balance, despite the raw shock of the impact jolting his right thigh and hip, and didn’t look up to see how his failure was perceived by others. He hadn’t jumped a foot.

He lowered his idea of a platform and jumped again. This time he seemed to land on something squishy that gave way under him, but if he shifted his weight, he found some balance. Some. His whole body worked to stay upright, but he did, and when he looked down, he had the sense he was hovering above it, though barely high enough to tell. His shadow didn’t quite connect with his feet right. Okay. He had this. Letting his feet rock into the invisible barrier to keep himself standing, he used his mind to imagine an upward pressure.

There were gasps. Several of the Turhmos ex-soldiers still worked in the accommodation block, but everyone else was here watching. Even Llew, who he smiled at.

“Huzzah,” Rowan murmured.

“Amazing,” Elka said.

Jonas was beginning to think so, too. The ground was clearly several feet below him. No doubt he still looked awkward, as he fought to find his balance. But who else could do what he was doing? Only Braph, who didn’t count for much.

“Can you move sideways?” Rowan asked.

“Uhm …” With some thought and an adjustment in his stance, Jonas slid to the left. “Whoa!” He stopped, arms windmilling briefly.

“That’s—” Llew gawked. “What he said: huzzah.”

On top of his own triumph, Llew’s acknowledgment filled Jonas with a contented warmth. Her suffering wasn’t for nothing.

“Huh.”

Llew’s subdued utterance shattered Jonas’s concentration and he fell. His arms grasped for nothing and his feet – both real and false – prepared for the landing as best they could. He landed hard, jarring his stumped thigh again, failed to find his balance and toppled into the gravel, scuffing palms, elbows, and forearms.

Karlani got to him first. “You good to stand?”

“I think so.” Jonas pushed himself up enough that Karlani could grip his arm and hoist him up, but when he tried to put weight on this right leg, he nearly toppled again. Karlani firmed her grip on him, holding him up.

“Oh, darn.” Rowan stepped in closer. “The prosthetic’s knee has given way. Guess we know how much punishment it can take now: not much. Here, I’ll help take it off.” He crouched and pulled the lower leg free of Jonas’s trousers, then invited Jonas to sit so he could roll the trouser leg clear of the strapped-on cuff. He held the two parts up, as if intending to stick them back together so they could easily see the breaks in the thin metal structures that had held each side of the knee joint together, no easy fix, as far as Jonas could tell. “Luckily, I already started designing a stronger model that I believe I can construct with the tools available here, eh? But if you want me to finish it sooner rather than later, we’ll have to train someone else in the tattooing. Seems it works, eh? How much is left?”

Jonas brushed his hands off on his thighs and leaned forward in the seat to give Rowan a better view as he walked behind him. Cleared of some of the gravel, Jonas inspected his palms. The skin was healed.

“That little exercise used hardly any,” Rowan said, a grin evident in his voice. “Most of what I tapped in this morning is still there. That’s amazing.”

Jonas looked at Llew. She was tense, leaning forward like she had been thinking of disconnecting from the tree, but her attention was fully on him.

“I’m fine,” he said, hoping to ease her. She did relax, thankfully. “What was the huh for?” He smiled, hoping she took his query for what it was, and not as some accusation that she’d caused his fall. Perhaps she had, but he also had to learn to ignore such things. If it really used as little power as it seemed, then he would have ample opportunity to practice.

Llew relaxed back into her seat. “The tree is quiet again. And I think it has been for some time, I just didn’t notice at first, with all the excitement here.”

“I wonder what that means,” Rowan said. “I get the impression Braph isn’t the kind of guy to say ‘Oh, well, I’ve got enough power, I’ll leave the rest.’”

Jonas snorted softly, at such an image. “No. My bet would be on that he has to do somethin’ with the sap to make it usable, then he’ll be right back to collectin’ more. Kinda like how Llew gets a break now and then.”

Llew nodded her agreement grimly.

Rowan crossed one arm across his torso and rested his other elbow on it, bringing that hand to his mouth. “It’s hard to compare, since the way Braph collected your blood gave you a sense of a single ‘draining’, while we’ve got you hooked to the Gravinator and constantly healing from an Ajnai … but I’d be willing to place a small wager on those few inches I’ve tattooed being equivalent to one-to-two crystals. Which means you might have enough on board to fly from Rakun to near Duffirk, at least.” He smiled. “That’s good. That took us two days to collect around also injecting simply to keep ahead of the infection. You’ll also need twice that to make a return journey, and more to stay healthy that whole time. And, of course we still need to estimate how that distance compares between here and Taither. And then, I guess we need some contingency for if you have to fight your way past Braph …”

“In other words, I’ve got plenty more bleeding to do.”

Llew said it with a smile, but the thought still wrenched Jonas’s gut. He so badly wished she didn’t have to, but here they were making real progress. It would be a waste to give up now. Besides, they’d promised. And it wasn’t just for them; they had a mission: free all the Aenuks and give them a chance at life.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Rowan also spoke with a deceptively light tone.

Llew met Jonas’s gaze. “It’s fine. It’s not that bad while the tree is quiet. Kind of like how you flinched a lot when Rowan started tattooing you, then relaxed into it.” She’d noticed? Of course she had. Besides, Jonas had to acknowledge his reduced capacity to remain stoic in the face of hardships while he remained in a continual battle with his invisible assailant sapping his energy.

“Here’s hoping he takes a long break, then,” Jonas smiled wryly in return.

“But we won’t.” Llew raised her chin. “Too many people are counting on us, even if they don’t know it yet.” She closed her eyes over a contented smile and relaxed back into her chair.

***

Llew took a deep breath and relaxed into her new role as, indeed, some bag of blood for others to use. She was reluctant to offer herself in such a way should Karlani, or any other Karan, do something stupid to kill themselves again but, with Jonas’s successes, her vision of freed Aenuks grew stronger. They really could do it. And with the tree silent beneath her touch, all she had to do was relax into the process of giving blood to a cause she believed in. Easy.

Delwynn brought Jonas’s crutches to him, and Llew peered at him with one eye.

“Keep practicing. You’ll have to think of all the tricks you’ll need to pull out to defeat Braph.” His fight against Braph that had ended in Jonas’s first death came to mind. The memory of Jonas writhing in pain, unable to control his own body threatened to shatter her otherwise good mood. She opened her other eye. “Just make sure you’re faster than him.”

“I will.”