Flecks of Gold (8 page)

At about noon—I couldn’t be sure of the time because my watch had stopped—I knew I was going to be in trouble. My body ached from the weight of my loads and from my now-colorful bruises. The sun beat at me with a relentless fervor. Sweat ran down my face, but my mouth felt like sand. I took a break to eat lunch. I considered throwing my books onto the ground along with my random papers. But I wasn’t totally desperate yet, so I decided to wait and see how long I could stand carrying them.

The road stretched endlessly, wavering heat mirages always just ahead. I trudged forward, longing to rest, but overruling such desires by thinking of Mom with Kelson. What had he done with her? What had I done wrong when I tried to follow him? I attempted to recall the pattern he had made, but I still couldn’t understand what I’d missed, so I gave it up.

Instead, I studied the lacings in the objects I passed. Rock, bush, lizard, spider, funny-looking insect, and so on. I even caught a hare’s pattern before it vanished in the underbrush. It was actually fun. I tried to quiz myself on the lacings I’d seen, but that was problematic since I had to find the object again to double check the pattern. I still didn’t have a clue what good knowing these patterns would be, but the only other thing to do was feel hot, sore, and generally miserable.

I
was getting really
good at seeing patterns in the things around me. In fact, I started to get bored of the same bushes and bugs, so I tried to think of other ways to see patterns. I got out all the food in my bag to look at their lacings, and then started sneaking glances at the things that passers-by carried.

By dark, I was still walking. My swift stride had turned into a halting shuffle. My feet were killing me. I considered just dropping where I stood instead of reaching the village, but there was too much traffic, so I put one foot in front of the other, hoping to see the village over the next rise. It took several rises before I actually saw it, but when I did, the sight was spectacular to my travel-weary eyes. It was certainly bigger than Iban. Lights shone in the buildings, which were at least two stories high. From the hill where I stood, the town looked like a huge maze surrounded by tall walls. I was afraid that once I got into the city I would get helplessly lost.

Despite my slow shuffle, I was soon surrounded by buildings. A few people still traveled on the road, though I guessed it had to be something like 10 p.m. All I wanted was to find a bed. I stopped a passing man and asked where an inn would be. He directed me quickly and then hurried off, leaving me more confused than before. I walked the way he had first pointed, hoping a light would descend, telling me the right path to follow. But no heavenly beacon showed up to light a trail, and I found myself in a very dark, narrow alleyway.

I looked around in confusion and tried to retrace my steps, but I kept twisting into dirtier, more rundown paths. There were fewer lights here, and I started to get the heebie-jeebies. If this were a movie, I’d get jumped from behind any second now. I tried to hum the
Jaws
theme to make myself laugh, but the sight of two disgustingly dirty men killed the amusement like a snapped stick.

The men advanced with sickening smiles. I glanced quickly behind to see if I could run that way, but found I had unconsciously backed myself into a dead end. While they were still a few feet away, I sloughed the bags off my shoulders and shifted my feet to a fighting stance. If I could maneuver them toward the wall, I would abandon my packs and run like a wild thing.

Despite my height, two against one wasn’t good odds, and I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I could incapacitate two men without getting hurt. Besides, I’d never actually harmed someone on purpose before. When I was sparring in the karate dojo, I wore pads and controlled my strikes. The only other time I had hit a person with full force was when I’d punched Joe. But that time I hadn’t been stranded in an unknown desert and forced to walk loaded up with supplies all day. My arms and legs felt wobbly with exhaustion and fear. I summoned what was left of my strength.

“Can I help you with something?” I attempted to mold my face into an unconcerned expression, but my lips trembled a little. They didn’t answer, just took up positions on either side and slid closer.
Well, okay, I knew that wasn’t going to work
. When they were only two arm lengths away, I took a deep breath and yelled, “Help!” at the top of my lungs.

That put them in motion. I sidestepped the man with a dirty gray shirt while kneeing him in the groin, always a good place to start. The green-shirted man grabbed my arms, but I wrenched my wrists from his grip and struck up with both fists into his face. He staggered away, and I was distantly aware that hitting him had really hurt my knuckles.

The man I dubbed Gray came up more cautiously this time, and I circled with him, trying to keep an eye on the other man at the same time. Gray rushed in suddenly, swinging frantically at my face. I blocked him easily, but lost track of the man in green, who came up from behind to bear-hug me. Green caught one of my arms, and Gray took advantage of this by grabbing my other arm and hitting me in the face. The world exploded and spun for what seemed an eternity before I recovered enough to fight back.

Green’s smell was nauseating. My foot swept back to kick him in the groin, and then slammed down on his feet. But as he loosened his grip, his partner struck me again on the other side of my face. I saw light, then blackness, then a hand descending toward my nose. I wrenched to the side in time for the blow to strike my shoulder, but I was having trouble focusing.

I kicked at Gray and ripped my arm free from his grasp. I was going to loosen Green’s grip again when he suddenly dropped away from me to the ground. Surprised, I tripped over him. Gray was about to use my imbalance to kick me over when another man came between us and caught Gray’s foot mid-kick and threw him to the ground.

Seeing his partner unmoving on the ground, Gray scrambled to his feet and scuttled quickly away. I wasn’t sure yet if I should be grateful or try to fight this new man, but he spun away to check Green’s pulse, and then straightened and turned back to look at me. I was stunned to note that he was about as tall as me, if not taller. Everyone I’d passed on the road had been shorter.

I couldn’t see his face clearly, but the weak light accented his high cheek bones and defined jaw line. He wore the strange desert garb in a color too deep to discern in this poor light. My shoulders tensed when I noticed a sword hanging at his side.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

I felt like a truck had run over me, but I wasn’t going to admit it in case he was trying to put me off my guard. “I’m fine. I just need to get to an inn, sleep it off. Thanks for your help.” I gathered up my bags but put them loosely on my shoulders so I could quickly shrug them to the ground if I needed to. Then I walked away, keeping a wary eye on him. I tried hard not to limp. Nothing was twisted, but my exhaustion from the fight and hiking all day made my gait hard to control.

“Wait, let me at least show you where an inn is. This is a dangerous part of the city. Many thieves dwell here,” he said.

“And why are you here?” I asked before thinking better of it.

“I heard your call for help,” he said simply.

“Oh. Well, thanks for coming. Look, I’m really grateful, but I don’t know who you are, so I think I’ll just find my own way.”

“Do I look like the kind of person who would associate with the likes of that?” He straightened his shoulders indignantly, waving at Green.

I looked closely at him again. His desert garb fit him perfectly. His dark hair was pulled severely back into a ponytail, and he held himself with practiced grace. Okay, so he didn’t look like common riffraff, but it was hard to see his face in the dimness of the alley.

“All right. Please show me where to go.” I gestured for him to go first. Despite his rescue, I wasn’t about to have my back to a stranger.

He led the way, scanning the street as he went. My gut twisted in worry. My eyes kept twitching to the shadows and then back to the man leading the way. Soon, however, we turned onto a street that was much wider and cleaner. More lamp lights lined this road, and I felt immeasurably better.

My rescuer seemed to relax as well. He turned and asked, almost suspiciously, “Why were you in that part of Cibar?”

I blushed. I was so tired that I blurted out, “Look, I’ve never been in this stupid maze of a town before. Every turn just got me more lost.” I stumbled a bit over nothing and had to concentrate on my footing.

“We’re almost there.” His voice was soft, almost kind, but I wasn’t in the mood to feel grateful for sympathy.

I could hardly think straight, and my face was on fire with pain. The rest of me didn’t feel too hot either.
Blasted desert
, I thought irritably. “I want to take a bath and put ice on my face and knuckles. I doubt I’ll find either of those things in this third world country.” I realized too late that I was muttering my thoughts out loud.

“What are you mumbling?” the man asked.

“Nothing.”

“What is a third world country?” he persisted.

“
This
is a third world country,” I exploded, gesturing around me. “This unsanitary dump with no plumbing, no electricity, and no blasted cars. Do you realize that I could get to your stupid capital in less than three hours if I just had a car?” Many of my words hadn’t translated, and the man looked confused, so I stopped my tirade with a sigh. “Sorry, I’m not at my best right now,” I apologized. He had apparently determined that it was safer to stay quiet.

We reached an inn, but it was a moment too late to save what remained of my dignity. My body was in shock, and I stumbled on the inn’s steps, then folded up in a heap in the middle of the doorway. The man picked me up easily, and I wondered if all men from Iberloah were extraordinarily strong. It wasn’t simple to pick up a girl as tall and solid as I was, but he carried me into the inn and sat me down on a cushion near the wall. I leaned back and groaned when he touched my face lightly.

“This will bruise badly if not helped,” he said.

“I doubt you’ll find any ice in this . . . this place,” I finished lamely, too exhausted to find a word foul enough to express my disgust.

“We do not need ice if I may have your permission to create a lacing to heal your wounds.”

I sat up quickly against the wall and stared at him full in the eyes. The inn’s common room was well-lit, and I jumped in surprise to find that the man’s eyes were bright purple with a cluster of gold flecks shooting out from the center. My eyes must have shocked him as well—he inhaled sharply and muttered something unintelligible. I looked down again quickly.

“You’re a magician?” I asked. There was a bite to my words.

“Yes.” He had recovered his graceful poise.

“Well, don’t try to put an enchantment on me. It won’t work. I know how to fend you people off now,” I bluffed.

His shoulders rocked back as if from a blow. “I would never participate in such foul practices.”

I risked a flick of my eyes to his. He looked furious. I recoiled, sliding along the wall further away from him, guessing I’d just put my foot in my mouth. I didn’t want to find out if he was offended enough to hit me. He knew how weak I was and how helpless.

Then he spoke. “Wait, forgive me. I did not mean to scare you. I’m merely angry that such magicians exist.” He touched my arm lightly where one of the thugs had hit me.

I winced. To cover my pain, I said, “I wasn’t afraid. I was just readjusting my position on my pillow, thank you very much.” I looked defiantly back into his eyes, hoping the gold would unnerve him. It didn’t. He stared back, lips twitching as if he were trying to suppress a laugh.
The nerve!

“If you don’t mind, you can just show me the lacing, and I’ll do it myself.” I glanced at him, but he simply nodded and showed me the pattern between us one strand at a time, as Ismaha had done. His lacings were a bright purple, and I finally realized that a person’s eye color determined his thread color. Or maybe it was the other way around. I was too tired to care.

I looked at his pattern for a second. “Which one do I tweak?”

“Tweak?”

“Um, which strand do I change to heal my cheeks?”

He nodded and pointed to one of the strands. I quickly created the pattern in my head, twisted the thread, and felt an immediate release of pain in my right cheek.

“That’s wonderful,” I said, sighing. “What’s the next one?”

He showed me the pattern for each area that had been wounded, and which thread to change to correct my injuries.
Now this is useful
, I thought contentedly when I’d finished healing my bruises and cuts. The magic had made me even more tired, but I started to wonder at its other possibilities. I thought I could probably also get rid of my soreness if I could figure out the right patterns and which strand to change. But that was where I was blocked—I still didn’t know how to figure out which part to change without someone showing me.

Through the euphoria of less pain, I noticed that the man still sat next to me, watching my face intently.

“Thanks, Mr. uh . . .”

“Breeohan Irat Ahasan.” He gave a slight bow of his head. Wow, I was going to have to ask him to repeat that one about a million times before remembering it. “And you are?”

His name had been so long, I decided to give my full name for competition’s sake. “Mary Margaret Underwood.” It didn’t sound as impressive. “Well, thanks for dropping in to lend a hand.” I stood, swayed a little, and then steadied. He stayed sitting, so I moved off to find the innkeeper and bargain for a room.

The innkeeper flatly refused to take anything but money when I tried to bargain some of my goods for a room and food. My heart sank down to my well-worn running shoes. I was too tired to go anywhere else, afraid that I might get lost again. I sat heavily on a pillow, rubbing my eyes as if that could squeeze out a plan. My elbows thunked on the low table, and I rested my heavy head in my hands.