Haven 6 (28 page)

Shouts from the village elders carried on the wind as they set up the stalls along the main square of the village. He didn’t have much time. He sprinted down the slope toward the village, careful not to damage any of the blossoms. They had to look perfect. Perfect like her sharp features, the curve of her cheeks, and the shine in her dark hair.

He ran through the village to Riptide’s family hut. He stuffed the bouquet between his teeth and climbed the ladder, his heart speeding.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.

He’d waited all summer to show her his feelings, bottling them up like pearl-berry juice. The festive atmosphere of harvest time excited him and gave him the confidence he needed. Besides that, he hadn’t felt the darkness flare inside him for a long time.

Now or never
. He pulled himself up.

Riptide’s mother shuffled over to greet him, wiping her hands on her apron. “Weaver, what brings you here right before the celebration?”

He pulled the stems from his mouth. “I have something for Riptide.”

A complicated emotion passed on her face before she regained her composure. “She’s not here.”

“Where is she? Is she all right?”

Riptide’s mother gave him a tightlipped frown. The older woman had never liked him very much, but Weaver didn’t let her ill will stop him. Not this time.

“She’s at your family hut.”

Weaver’s heart stopped. Had Riptide come to ask him? She’d been hanging around him and Striver since the last few long summer days—going fishing, picking berries, and sharing her mom’s favorite recipes. She had a killer arm and could spear trotter from the riverbank.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Remembering his manners, he bowed his head before stuffing the stems back into his mouth.

As Weaver jogged through the village, he passed Beckon firing up the coals for the boar roast. Golden swirls moved in the embers in between the coals. The old man shouted over the growing flames, “Remember what we talked about concerning you joining the council. We’d really like to have you.”

Weaver waved. “I’m considering your offer.”

He passed under Carven’s wife, Lista, who stood on a ladder, threading lace through branches. “Hello to the new arrow maker!” she called down, her long brown hair blowing with the leaves.

Weaver slowed and jogged in place. “Nice to see you, Lista.”

“So are you excited about being Carven’s new apprentice?”

“I sure am. And I’ll work real hard. You watch. I’ll be making bows before you know it.”

“I’d like to see that.” She held onto her stomach. “I’m expecting another child, and Carven really needs the free time to help me out at home.”

Weaver glanced at the bump in her tunic. He hadn’t even noticed. “Congratulations, Lista.”

“Thank you. Give my regards to Striver and your mom.”

“I will.”

As he approached his family’s tree hut, a sense of belonging and acceptance overcame him, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He was moving up in the world despite living in Striver’s shadow. Striver could only do so much, leaving other opportunities for Weaver to pick up. And now he’d spend the day with Riptide. Life had turned sweet.

Riptide and Striver stood on the circular balcony surrounding the tree hut. Weaver opened his mouth to shout up to get their attention and froze. Such intensity lay in her eyes, it stopped his heart.

She placed her delicate hand on Striver’s wrist. “I want you to go.”

What did she mean? Go with her to the harvest fair?

Weaver’s chest cramped up and a weight squeezed out all the air in his lungs. Had she spent all of that time with him to get to Striver?

Striver shook his head. “I have too much to attend to. The boars need to be skinned, and my mother is ill. I must stay behind to tend to her. Why don’t you go with Weaver?”

Weaver clutched the rope ladder, feeling the twine of the braid cut into his skin.

Riptide pulled away from Striver, frowning in disgust. “Weaver is still a boy. He’s got so much to learn.”

Weaver felt like nothing, small as an insect or a grain of dirt. Was he really that miserable to be around?

Striver stepped toward her. “He’s a good person and you should consider him in your thoughts as well.”

Riptide leaned over the balcony and Weaver ducked underneath the ladder to avoid being seen. “You’re making excuses.”

Striver didn’t move to comfort her. “I am not. I’m being responsible.”

“You have a responsibility to yourself as well, Striver. You have to allow a little fun now and then.”

“You speak the truth. But today is not the day.”

“When?” She practically swooned, making Weaver sick.

He climbed a few rungs to hear Striver’s response. “I-I can’t tell you. I really don’t know.”

Diplomatic enough to keep her at arm’s length, but vague enough to keep her waiting, Striver left her on the balcony without so much as a good-bye. Riptide clung to the railing and shed silent tears.

Weaver was tempted to comfort her, but she didn’t want him; she wanted Striver. Dropping the bouquet, he stumbled away from the hut. The flowers spread and sunk in the mud.

A familiar pain stabbed his chest. The darkness within him welled up and spread through his veins until he raged with pain and hate.

He felt hurt, used, betrayed. Why did Striver have to take everything he wanted?

Weaver stumbled over to the tanks of fermenting pearl-berry ale pulled from the distillery for the fair. He poured himself a jug and gulped the sour liquid in three gulps, red trickling down his neck to stain the white tunic he’d washed and pressed so carefully. He poured another, and another after that, wanting to drown in it, like he almost had in the river. The liquid spread through him, dulling the pain but not obliterating it. The darkness would always be inside him, and he’d never be free.

Stumbling into the main square, Weaver kicked over chairs and market stands. Fruit rolled on the ground and he kicked a pearvacado at a swillow wisp regarding him with a little black eye. The bird took off squealing.

Beckon tried to help him up. “Weaver, what’s happened, is everybody all right?”

Weaver pushed the old man away. The darkness enveloped him, tendrils spreading over his heart, rooting inside his soul.

“Go to Hell!”

Beckon had always been so calm and collected. He had no idea what true pain was. He’d never understand. The old man stared at him like he’d turned into a monster. Weaver shied away, feeling the beast inside him rear up to wreak its revenge. If he stayed, he’d hurt someone, maybe worse.

Weaver bolted into the jungle, tearing through the undergrowth. People called after him.

“Weaver!”

“Weaver!”

He ignored their pleas.

…

He woke up with Eri’s angelic face hovering over him. She shook his arm. “Weaver, are you okay?”

He shriveled away from her touch. “I’m fine.” Crusty snored across the cavern, so at least the old man hadn’t seen his vulnerability.

Eri raised her eyebrows. “You were tossing and turning, mumbling Striver’s name in your sleep.”

“Bad dream.” But it wasn’t. It had been a memory, real as the day it had happened. So real, he noticed things he hadn’t paid attention to the first time. When it had happened, he’d hated Striver, wishing his brother had never been born. After experiencing the memory again, he realized Striver had tried to protect him from the truth. Not only did Striver suggest Riptide go with Weaver instead, he turned the village beauty’s affections away. All for him.

Weaver’s heart hurt like he hadn’t exercised it in years and only now did it begin to feel again. He’d made an ass of himself that day, and Beckon had outlawed him from the council, citing his unpredictable nature. He’d thought the punishment harsh, but now he understood. He deserved every bit of the shame.

“Eri, I have a question for you.”

She poured over her notes in the sand, not even looking up as she answered him. “What is it?”

“Have you had any memories lately?”

“Like what?”

“You know, recollections of the past.”

She pulled herself away from the symbols and glanced at the stalactites dripping water from the cavern’s ceiling. “Come to think of it, I have. Visions of my sister and me when we were little keep flashing in my mind.”

“Are they the same as you remembered them to be?”

“No.” She pulled her curls out of her face. “They’re clearer.”

Weaver ran a hand through his hair, thinking. The golden liquid wasn’t warping his memories; it was displaying them through a clearer lens, a perspective outside of himself. “Do the memories make you feel guilty?”

Eri shook her head. “Not at all. They make me want to keep reliving them, over and over again. I have to remind myself of the symbols, or we’ll never get out of here.” She gave him an incriminating glare and muttered under her breath, “Unless you want to overtake Crusty now. He’s sleeping on the job.”

“And go back to the village? No way. The key to everything lies in those symbols. Besides, Crusty can see everything. He’d wake up right before you tried anything. Believe me, I’ve watched him.”

She stared back at him with intensity brewing in her eyes. “We could take him, you and I.”

“That’s not part of my plan. I abducted you, remember? We’re not on the same playing field. You’re still my prisoner.”

“Seems like we’re both prisoners.” Eri’s jaw jutted out and she flared her eyes before returning to the symbols, whispering dead languages under her breath.

“Have you made any headway?”

She hesitated, as if she were deciding what to share with him. “Yes.”

Holy Refuge, why didn’t she say anything sooner?
“Well, what is it? What do they say?”

“The language is a lot like the hieroglyphics used by the ancient Egyptians.”

“Who?”

“A race of people who used to inhabit Old Earth.”

Ancient Egyptians? Why hadn’t he ever heard of them? Doubt teased him. Maybe this young woman had no idea what she was doing. Maybe she was making it up in an effort to win her freedom. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they be here, parsecs away?”

Eri blew dust off of a pyramid with an eye in the middle. “Actually, it makes perfect sense. Their ancient mythology talks of visitors from the heavens, and these aliens could have been whom they referred to. Whoever carved these symbols worshipped this golden substance.”

She pointed to a symbol of a ramp with a ball in the middle. “Look here: this is an Ahket. It represents the horizon from which the sun emerged and disappeared. It’s also a representation of the passing of time.” She pointed to a cross with an oval on top of it. “And look at this one. It’s an ankh, the symbol for eternal life.”

The more she talked, the more Weaver believed her. “Yes, but what do they have to do with the golden liquid? What do they mean?”

“If I’m deciphering the inscription correctly, the golden liquid is an extremely volatile energy source, existing outside of time. Perhaps that’s why it triggers memories in all of us.”

He thought of Snipe falling into the liquid, and of the suspicions Striver had of their father’s disappearance. Even though Striver had never spoken to Weaver about it, Weaver knew Striver thought their father’s disappearance had something to do with the golden liquid. His heart quickened, eager to learn the truth. “So when people fall into it, where do they go?”

“Another dimension?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a philosopher. All I can tell you is what the symbols allude to. They say this substance contains all of time, and simultaneously, it’s the exact opposite, existing without the boundaries of time. Outside the ribbon of time itself.”

Weaver’s head swam with nonsense. “Hold on, where are the beings who carved the symbols now? Why would they just leave it behind?”

Eri pointed to a stick with two branches on either side, pointed up. “This is
Ka
. It means soul or spirit. The ancient Egyptians believed their
Ka
would live on, even after they died.”

She followed the symbols around the perimeter of the pool “Now look here.” Two-legged beings with strange animal heads stepped onto a platform and disappeared. Above the hieroglyph was that ancient symbol for soul. “I think they stepped into the liquid, hoping they’d live forever in the undoing of time.”

Weaver pointed to the liquid. “You’re telling me they’re in there?”

“Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?”

“No.” Weaver shook his head, trying to absorb everything she told him. “This is all very interesting, Eri, but none of it helps us. What can the golden liquid do?”

Eri sat back on her heels and tapped her finger on the last symbol. “I don’t know. In my opinion, this substance is too dangerous to mess with. It cuts through the fabric of time and space.”

Weaver’s stomach churned with this new information, his mind ticking away, mulling over how to use this powerful, dangerous substance for his own purposes. “Can it be contained and controlled?”

“Obviously it’s movable.” Eri stuck the stick into it and when she pulled it out, the end dripped golden tears on the cavern floor. “But how it reacts with other energy sources, I have no idea.”

Weaver’s eyes widened, unable to contain his excitement. “Whatever it does, it’s powerful stuff.”

Striver tightened the swamp reeds along the Death Stalker bow he and Weaver had designed. His skin burned, rubbed raw by mending every used bow in the village, but the pain was nothing compared to the hurt twisting inside of him from the betrayal of his brother and the loss of Eri. He shoved the agony back to the deeper part of his soul, blockading his emotions for a later time. A battle loomed, and he had to protect his people first. The two hundred Death Stalkers he’d spread on the floor of the council room seemed like a minuscule lot.