TWO HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX: Here-to-There VI

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******

The impact of the bokabv demon’s body shook the ground, and its cry of rage—or was it agony?—shook the air. Dirt fountained up as it rolled. Alden had gotten the rope in front of the beast just in time, and now his second shield was already covering them as he grabbed Kibby by the back of her shirt and tossed her through the open door of the car.

“Turn it on! Turn—!”

Something slammed into him—like a diseased wave, it broke against the thin foam shield he’d prepared before they left the lab. Shaped like a turtle shell, large but very light. It had seen use as a laundry tub a couple of times, but nothing like this.

They were supposed to be out of the chaos now.

He watched the grass warp near his feet. Kibby screeched as the car rocked, threatening to tip. Alden’s shield had taken the worst of the blow, but it wasn’t large enough to protect the whole vehicle.

Kibby was punching buttons. He jumped into the car, still holding the shield through the open door in case their enemy…no. The demon wasn’t coming. Not yet. He could see the grotesquely transformed bokabv through the car’s exterior camera system as the screen switched on. It was still down, screaming and struggling to rise. That wave had only been the chaos associated with its charge.

Drive. He slammed his hand into the control panel, and they shot forward.

It can’t chase us now. I hurt it bad with that trip line. It just doesn’t quite know it’s dead yet.

The demon’s next scream, as they barreled away from it, was so pained it made his stomach clench.

He didn’t know why the sound made him think of an Artonan girl, a young woman, carefully shaking sand out of a blanket that seemed to have a mouth.

I remember that, don’t I? Wasn’t that during the Here-to-Th—

Something hit him in the stomach.

The dream winked away.

******

******

Alden should have slept for around six hours. Even without accessing his interface, he knew he must have gotten less than that because he felt like he could go right back to the dream if only he didn’t open his eyes. His body was heavy, his breath was steady and deep, and the sofa that had seemed too firm earlier now held him to it like a magnet.

Good potion. Poor demon bokabv. I love Healer Yenu.

He was almost back in dreamland where he belonged.

“No. Unfortunately he’s drugged himself to sleep. I tried to ———, but he didn’t wake up. They’ve given him a ——— Traveler’s bag. Yes, a real one. What a life it must be to live as a hn’tyon’s ———! Having a nap while the rest of us work…not that I’d take his place. Proper respect to our guardians here, far, and lost of course. Of course! But I’m not one of those who can ——— the thought of enduring such a ——— process. Feeling ————— is natural for all of us, but I do think I’m more sensitive than most to the purity of my own —————.”

Alden could have gone right back to sleep if not for whoever this chatterbox was. The Artonan’s words were only half registering, some of the less familiar ones disappearing altogether thanks to his inactive interface and uneager brain.

Shhhh, person.

The person didn’t shhhh.

“Oh, yes. I know. I might have, too, if I could stand it. But when they showed us as young…exactly, exactly. Proper respect, but, unfortunately, the thought of doing such a thing to my self or being forever around those who do, turns my shit liquid.”

Alden grimaced. You officially suck, person.

That last bit was too gross not to drag him to real wakefulness. And as he gained awareness, the first thing he noticed was that his nice, cold room was now hot. Which meant the sucky person had changed his thermostat.

The next thing he noticed was that his messenger bag was on the sofa with him, against his stomach, and since he hadn’t gone to sleep with it there, that meant someone had taken his bag from the table and moved it. Or dropped it on him. He vaguely remembered thinking something had hit him in the stomach.

He didn’t carry anything incredibly precious in his bag, but touching other peoples’ stuff? Or throwing it at them? He was definitely too irritated to sleep now.

He opened his eyes a crack only for them to be pierced by the blazing light coming through every single window. His very unwelcome company hadn’t even left the one over Alden’s face shaded.

He glimpsed the culprit—Tass-ovekondo’s weak-diplomaed son Olget—then clenched his eyes shut again.

He came into my room and tried to wake me up to make me leave?!

Technically, this part of the car was for wizards during normal operation. But Stuart had said it wouldn’t be used today unless something unexpected came up. The wizards guarding the Here-to-There weren’t supposed to cloister themselves away from the ordinary class. It was counter to the spirit of the event.

And even if someone needed to do something in here, they could have shared like civilized creatures. Shining lights in sleeping peoples’ faces and throwing bags at them was utterly indecent.

Olget-ovekondo wanted the wizard room all to himself so that he could call a friend and ramble on about the consistency of his bowel movements?

Alden would lie on this sofa pretending to sleep until the end of time. Let this cupcake-flushing butthole turn the temperature up past a hundred if he wanted. Alden would “sleep” through it as obnoxiously as he possibly could.

Or is that punishing me too much more than him? Should I wake up and try to make him leave by explaining that I’m under healer’s orders to dream for a certain number of hours each day?

He was trying to decide which method would get his space back fastest when the words the man had been saying began to hold meaning.

Alden forced his face to remain in something approximating the peace of his stolen rest. It was hard. Olget-ovekondo might have said he respected the knights, but it sounded like it had just been an opening to make room for him to say that…

I think one of the words he used meant “repulsive” or “vile”. Is he saying he was unfortunately unable to take the path of highest onus because the thought of having his authority bound is so revolting it gives him diarrhea?

No. He took it a step farther than that.

Couldn’t even bear to be around the knights. The mere thought of what they were gave him the heebie-jeebies. His purity was that delicate.

Alden’s temper cooled because he was really thinking about those words. And also about “The Elder’s Croak” and wizards pat-patting away at each other’s authority. And he was realizing that shallow wizards—shallow, unserious people like this grown adult who whined when his mother gave a valuable possession to a former assistant—must be able to look at someone sacrificing themselves and think something as empty and immature as, “They’re ugly.”

He wasn’t even embarrassed he thought it. He was gabbing away.

Alden’s eyes opened. The wizard didn’t notice. He was sipping a drink at one of the two-seater tables, looking out a window. They’d coupled with the larger train while Alden slept, and a string of long white cars in front of them was visible as they all curved to the right for a direction change that had no visible reason.

The wizard had already had his little say about knights, and now he was having a little say about the Here-to-There he’d agreed to protect. Someone named Mutty was hearing that this day was a tragedy and a betrayal. His mother’s devotion to the village, his own devotion to the village, the gifts given—it was all so unfair to Olget-ovekondo. These people had no real loyalty. They should have supported him as the next village master. They were supposed to be his inheritance. Instead, his mother was sending them off with many other things that were supposed to be his inheritance.

She intended to die broke sometime this century, one of her two bound wands was now ruined, and none of his siblings cared enough to protest.

Olget was having such a sad day. Forced to pretend none of it bothered him. Stuck on a train with a drugged human who could not be irritated into leaving.

I can’t believe I wanted to be spiteful to this person, Alden thought, watching him with an emotion he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before. Something fairly cold. Detached. Disappointed not in Olget-ovekondo but in…society maybe.

What’s the point?

He decided he would sit up and tell Olget to go away, plainly and politely. Firmly if politely didn’t work. This man wasn’t worth his anger, and he certainly wasn’t worth Stu-art’h’s time. But before he could rise and do it, the door to the room slid aside and a grouchy Bithe stepped in. His dull red coat was as pristine as it had been when they left this morning.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked.

Olget scrambled out of his chair. “Hn’tyon Bithe! I was making a quick call. Important business.”

Bithe looked at the drink on the table in front of the wizard, then at the temperature control panel. “Quick?”

“I’ve just finished.”

“Nobody else has needed to come in here on this trip. I don’t understand how you could have missed our votary’s request that our Avowed remain untroubled. He put it on the tellingbush. Are your eyerings malfunctioning?”