(This story takes place between ‘Safe Guards’ and ‘Steel Echoes.’)
“Again,” commanded Kres Feber. “And this time,” he added sternly, “don’t hold back!”
Bolt’s brows arched unhappily at the directive. Normally his rank would afford him the authority to override Kres, but he had received other orders which left no doubt who was in charge of this exercise.
The gigantic Tantareli centaur shoved against the ground with his rear hooves, kicking off with enough force to dig two-inch-deep gashes in the grassy loam. His haunches bunched as his rear legs gathered under his rump, the hide roiling with coiled muscle. “RrraaAAUGH!” he roared as he released the tension. His hooves exploded backward and slammed into their target. The sound of the impact echoed across the yard, rattling the windows of the former Makko Estate, currently serving as the interim garrison for Embron’s City Guard. Regaining his balance, Bolt spun with frantic haste to check the results of his strike.
Nacci Agat had been standing with her hands clasped behind her, face turned to one side, bare feet spread the width of her shoulders for easy balance. She’d removed her uniform tunic to prevent the possibility of it suffering damage, still retaining her regulation slacks and undershirt. The cream-colored garment covered her chest as far as her ribs, leaving her midriff exposed. The dusky flesh of her abdomen now sported two crescents where the skin was a shade lighter. These quickly faded, leaving no sign of the blow she’d just absorbed.
“Are ye well?” Bolt demanded, anxiety raising his normal bass rumble to a braying baritone. He stared at Nacci, demanding confirmation of the impossible assurance his eyes already offered.
Nacci smiled up at him. “I told you to not fret, Lieutenant,” she reminded him. “Though that time I indeed felt the impact.”
Bolt gaped. “Felt it,” he murmured at length. Me hooves’re still smartin,’ and she Felt the Impact. Ladies!
Kres turned to Her Ladyship, Melia iv-Shayl Shad. Her verdant eyes were still transfixed, as if in the belief that staring long enough would make the spectacle she’d just witnessed less incredible. “What did you feel, Your Ladyship?” Kres asked her. When she made no answer he prompted, “Your Ladyship.”
Melia blinked and turned her eyes to Kres. “The… the same,” she murmured, trying to crystallize within adequate words the sensations that echoed in her mind. “Her Kinship is as elementary as it ever was. The complexity of her connection to stone and soil is no different from any other Novice. She has assumed only the most basic aspects, strength and resilience.” She paused, hands waving before her as if sorting through her vocabulary for an accurate, concise description.
“But to an extraordinary degree,” Kres offered.
“And effortless!” Melia added, nodding in acceptance of Kres’ analysis. “Kinship is instinctive craft, requiring no ritual or training. Control of an aerin’s element is literally part of our body and soul. But tapping into and manipulating the element still takes energy.” She nodded at Nacci. The petite Terine and Bolt were both examining the centaur’s rear right hoof. Nacci ran a finger along a crack which ran the height of the nail, and looked up at Bolt with eyes wide in pain and apology.
Melia continued, “Maintaining even a Novice tap for a day is exhausting for most aerin. Yet so far as any can tell, Nacci has held hers constantly this past month without the slightest sign of strain.” Bolt grinned reassuringly at Nacci, the expression clearly saying I’ve ‘ad worse! He pinched a rune from a pouch on his uniform harness and handed it to her. She placed the inscribed disc against the wound and traced the sigils on its surface, activating the spell coded into the rune and repairing the crack. “Such is unheard of for anyone less than the strongest Avatars,” Melia concluded.
“Idiot savant,” offered Zerene as she strode across the yard, saying the words in English. She touched her hand quickly to her brow and away in a casual greeting that answered both Bolt’s utterly un-Guard-like wave and Nacci’s more proper salute.
“Bright afternoon, Captain!” Kres cried. He didn’t quite spring to attention, but squared his shoulders and straightened his back in acknowledgment of her arrival.
“Idiot…” Melia frowned as she labored to translate the phrase. “The second word I know not. Since you said the phrase in Earthsider Zerene, I trust it is not the insult it seems.”
“It’s not,” Zerene assured her. “It describes a person who’s at best average in most ways, who shows an extraordinary ability in one specific trait. Sometimes happens in response to a trauma.”
“Trauma,” Melia repeated, her frown deepening. You mean her rape, she added mentally. Are you so sure she’s recovered from that, Zerene?
Zerene’s yellow eyes rolled. She exhaled exasperation at Melia’s question. For the twenty-seventh time Melia, your cousin is fine! Fully recovered not yet. But– She nodded her head in Nacci’s direction. She’d retrieved her uniform tunic from where it had lain neatly folded on a bench, had shrugged into it and was pressing the seam shut. Bolt surveyed critically as she submitted to inspection to make sure it was on straight. You’re looking at her therapy, and it’s working! Do you think I’d let her on the street if I was unsure of her?
“Captain!” Nacci cried, bounding over to Zerene. “I’m overdue for patrol! May I be dismissed?”
“Not my call,” Zerene replied with a smile and a nod in Kres’ direction.
Nacci turned hopeful eyes on Kres. He scowled thoughtfully, too preoccupied with the puzzle she presented to be vulnerable. At length he shrugged and sighed in resignation. “We have all the information I think we can get under these conditions,” he decided. “You’re dismissed.”
Hope exploded, scattering joy over the yard. “Thank you!” Nacci cried with an electric smile. Five paces later she remembered to stop and salute, then sprinted across the yard toward the estate’s front gate.
“’Struth, I never saw a body so happy t’ be in uniform an’ keepin’ folk in line,” Bolt pronounced, joining the others left in Nacci’s wake.
“We’re hobbled,” Kres told Zerene unhappily. “With all respect to Her Ladyship, with only her senses for measurement and our deductions for analysis, we’ve reached the limit of what we can tell about Guard Agat’s condition.” He ran frustrated fingers through his thick blond forelocks, shredding the neat combing he’d applied that morning. “Right now her state seems both stable and beneficial. But is it?” he demanded rhetorically. “Perhaps it is progressive at a rate we cannot see. Her strength and resilience could continue to grow to the point that she crushes things with the slightest grip and feels nothing at all!”
“Her mental state concerns me as well,” Melia added. “Happy as I am to see her drawing such joy from her life which before was at best dull routine, the turnabout is so abrupt! I trust your judgement Zerene, truly I do. But if Kres’ worries about her physical state have any foundation, mightn’t the same danger exist for her mind? Both irresistable and immovable, she could lose any ability to relate to others on any sympathetic level, as some of advanced age lose all patience with children because they can no longer fathom their view of the world!”
“That’s a point, Spoons,” Bolt contributed. “’Ow often’ve ye ‘eard me complain ‘ow fragile ye little types are? Like I’m livin’ in a world o’ glass an’ paper!”
Zerene looked up at Bolt with a fine Et tu, Brute? glare. “You all worry too much,” she told them. “How do I know that Nacci’s abilities won’t drive her mad?” She shrugged. “We all live one day away from madness. Any of us could wake up happy and normal, only to watch the sun set with our definition of right, wrong, up, down turned totally ’round. Nacci’s no closer to that than any of us.”
“But how can you be sure, Captain?” Kres demanded.
Zerene blinked at him. “You’re joking, right?” she retorted. “After being with me in the siege vaults, working for me this past month, you can still ask that?” She crossed her arms in front of her and looked away, gazing at the portion of the cityscape visible over the estate wall. “I can feel the city,” she murmured. “All of it. Most of the time it’s background noise, like the haggling in Market Square. I could let it all in if I wanted, lose myself in it. I could take the crazy chaos of it and lay it in neat rows. Everybody would think and do only what I wanted them to.
“Does that scare you?” Suddenly her molten gaze lanced them all, as if by that look alone she could breach their shields and take what she pleased, even from mind-deaf Bolt. From the expressions on their faces she knew the answer. “It should,” she confirmed. “Frightens the shit out of me, it does. Know how I keep it from happening?”
A word rumbled in Bolt’s throat. He cleared it and let the word out. “Love,” he said.
Zerene suddenly smiled at him. “Smart pony,” she replied. “I love this crazy city, all of you, just as you are. You keep me connected. Through you, I remember what’s real and important.”
“And the same is true of Nacci,” Melia realized. “She draws joy from the help she gives people, the protection she affords them. Her power allows her to do that better, but it’s the work itself that gives her… connection.”
“Exactly,” Zerene confirmed.
“But what about her power itself?” Kres persisted. “How can we be sure it won’t overwhelm her?”
Zerene turned her smile toward the runesmith. “Like a dog with a bone,” she chided gently.
“You hired me for that very reason,” Kres retorted.
“So I did.” She nodded and gazed at the grass underfoot in thought. “Give me a week,” she told him.
Six days later Kres was called to the Captain’s office in the Guard’s brand-new garrison. The facility was three times as large as the old City Guard headquarters, which had burned during the battle to wrest control of Embron from the old Guard and their brigand allies. The greater size was necessary for two reasons. The new garrison included a smithy, mage’s workshop, and barracks spacious enough to house the entire Guard complement if needed. The second reason was that several rooms and corridors needed to be large enough to accommodate giant races such as ogres and Tantareli centaurs. The move into the new garrison had been completed just the day before. The old Makko estate now sat vacant, waiting for a buyer.
Zerene was to the point. “Review this,” she ordered without looking up, handing a slide across her desk. “Give me your analysis by the end of the day.”
Kres took the flat crystal rectangle, modern Shenn’s medium of choice for storing information. “Yes, Captain,” he acknowledged. Her brusqueness did not bother him. The Captain did not try to run all of the Guard’s affairs personally, but she was intent to stay abreast of them.
Bolt met Kres in the entrance to Zerene’s office. The Lieutenant smiled after the young runesmith, watching him all but run down the passage to his own workshop, the slide gripped tightly in one hand. “So who was right?” he asked Zerene.
Zerene looked up. “Dunno,” she said honestly. “I just now got the data, but I want his take on it first.”
“What?” Bolt feigned a surprised boggle. “Don’t ye trust yer own family’s expertise?”
Zerene grinned. “When did you figure it out?”
“Oh right,” Bolt retorted, throwing his hand in the air as he walked the rest of the way into the room. “Ol’ Pony was hired just ’cause the Captain sometimes needs a fast ride. Nobody cares fer the stuff what keeps the wind from whistlin’ ‘tween his ears.” He grinned and held up a hand to forestall her apology. “No worries, Spoons. I knew from th’ way y’asked Kres fer a week that ye intended t’ call yer kin on it. Otherwise ye’d've explained yer intent.” He feigned a burdened, harried expression. “’Course I hadda think fast on puttin’ th’ hnzruu at ease, the few times they kenned Nacci was bein’ shadowed.”
Zerene arched her eyebrows in surprise. “They actually spotted them?” She shook her head, impish humor playing about her lips. “I’ll have to pass that back to the Vale. They’ll no doubt see it as a challenge.”
“So,” Bolt said, getting to the point. “Where does this all leave Guard Nacci Agat?”
“Where she needs to be,” Zerene replied without hesitation. “On the street, doing her job.”
“What if Kres finds somethin’ worrisome in yer family’s information?”
Zerene smiled knowingly. “He won’t.”
Bolt frowned slightly. “Gotta say Spoons, these days sometimes yer right spooky.”
“Am I?” Zerene frowned in turn. “Can’t have that. Come on, Lieutenant.” She shoved her chair away from the desk, grabbing her tunic from the back of it and shrugging into the sleeves. “Time for us to be among the people!”
Kres spent the balance of the day poring through the information on the slide. He filled a pad with notes, cross-referencing measurements and observations and checking them against his own more limited data. When the sunlight coming in the window grew too dim he uncapped the lantern, letting the luminous crystal rod chase the shadows back. Suddenly he realized he had checked the same datum three times, and threw down his stylus. He leaned back in his chair and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to scrub fatigue away.
“So,” said a soft voice from the open doorway behind him. “Am I doomed?”
He spun in his chair, hands dropping from his eyes so he could stare unimpeded. She leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed in front of her. Some strands had slipped from her customary ponytail, drifting across her face. Her uniform was rumpled from the day’s patrol. Naturally her feet were bare. She’d worn neither shoe nor stocking since… that night.
Kres swallowed, summoning what saliva he could to wet his throat. He shook his head. “If this information is correct,” he told her, “and to doubt it would be to call the Captain’s resources to question…” He threw up his hands in acceptance. “Your state is both beneficial and stable. You are as you should be, and appear destined to stay that way.”
“Could have told you that!” she retorted. Then she crossed the workshop in a single bound, landing with her hands on the arms of his chair. She leaned down, and he felt a fleeting warm sweetness press against his lips. “Ladies smile on you for worrying,” she whispered, and fled.
Kres sat for quite a while longer, staring at the empty doorway.