Powerless Revision 1 (14 page)

“Is that so?” the man said, staring down at the little girl before him. “I’ve heard about magnets, but never the one you’re talking about. Do you have one I can see?”

Mira pulled a little silver disc from her pocket and showed it to the man. He took it, looked at it closely, and attached it to a pair of metal scissors he had handy on the counter.

“What’s the difference between this and a regular magnet?” he asked.

“This kind always retains its charge and gives off the strongest magnetic force. I need a bigger one though, one that is wider than my fist,” she said.

“I don’t think getting the zinc would be a problem, but I can’t make any promises about that magnet. It could be difficult and maybe even dangerous,” he said with concern. He then went on to quote a price so high that it made Mira lightheaded. She had never heard of that much money before.

“Is that a joke?” she asked, half serious and half indignant.

“I think that’s a fair price for what you’re asking for. We’ll have to search for it, do research, and bring it back to you.”

“How could I ever have that much money? I’m only fifteen years old!”

“I think if you need it badly enough you’ll be able to come up with it. Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to do something…creative to get the money,” he said, clearing his throat.

“I don’t think I can. I’ll come back later if I change my mind,” she said. She could no longer hold back her disgust so she stuck out her tongue as soon as she turned around. Anxious to leave, she went for the door.

“Do you know what your mistake was?” a thick and heavy voice said, startling Mira as she exited the Darmen Exchange office. Her head jerked and she jumped back when she realized the man stood just inches away from her by the door. He wore metal plating, armor apparently, that built him up and made him look intimidating. Despite his serious and intense look, Mira sensed that she didn’t need to be afraid. While she took a breath and returned to her senses, the man repeated himself.

“Not being born into a rich family?” she said, grumbling about the trader’s unfair prices.

“You let him know how badly you wanted it. Now you’ll never get anything from him without paying a king’s ransom. But you shouldn’t feel totally defeated yet. I can still help you.”

Mira eyed him warily.

“If you know how badly I need it too then how’s it going to be different?” she asked.

“I certainly couldn’t charge you as much as he did or you would walk away from me as well. And if I try to charge more than you have, then I’m certainly not going to get that either.”

“I don’t have very much,” Mira admitted.

“Maybe it’s a good thing then money isn’t the only thing I’m interested in.” The metal plates clinked as his hands moved along with his speech.

“What is it that you want?” she asked.

“Depends, what do you have that you can give me?” Mira met his glance with her own narrow and focused eyes. She brought an unflinching attention to this negotiation.

“Who are you and what do you do?”

“Call me Yannick. I can find like things and so I work at locating and retrieving things for people. Sometimes those things can be found and acquired for free but sometimes they cannot. I live in a tent outside of town on the way to Darmen. There is a stream, but the water is very dirty and I can’t drink from it, so I carry my water from here.”

It didn’t take Mira long to find a solution to his problem.

“Oh! What you need is a filter. I can make one of those. Then you’ll be able to drink the water from your stream and you won’t need to carry water all the way back to your…tent.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “I can see the value in that. Ok, explain to me what you want.” Mira told him about the neodymium magnet. She put the one she had in his hand and told him she needed a much bigger one. As soon as he touched it, he turned his head to the side like he was listening for something in the distance. He began nodding his head again and turned his attention back to Mira.

Mira also told him about the zinc, and Yannick showed her some he had on his arm. Seeing it right in front of her, she wanted to snatch it up as if it were on the shelf at a store. The thin plate would be perfect and she could cut it into tiny discs and make a battery or two out of it.

“You’re doing it again, with your eyes, letting me know how badly you want something. You’ve got to control yourself. For your water filter, I’ll find what you’re looking for and give you the zinc plate. Do we have a deal?” He extended his hand.

“Give me this and this plate too to make the filter with,” she said, pointing to steel plates on his body. He nodded and they shook hands.

“How will I know when you’re back?” Mira asked. Yannick looked her up and down, frowning at her clothes. He looked up above her eye line and then his hand shot out at her, grabbing a single strand of hair and ripping it from her head. He looked at it in his hands and then looked back up to Mira.

“You could have warned me first,” she grumbled. Understanding that he would find her upon his return, Mira took her plates, which were not light, and she left to go home. She couldn’t wait to fashion the zinc plate into a battery, charge it up, and see what kind of devices she could power. She felt less enthusiastic about the steel plates and the chore of making a filter for her new supplier.

Still, it dawned on her that she had made this trade entirely by herself. She wouldn’t have to ask her parents for any money, and she would be able to earn what she wanted by her very own hands. Satisfaction bloomed inside of her because of it, and she thought making the filter wouldn’t be so bad after all.

She went down into the basement as soon as she got home and got right to work.

***

Ogden Fortst surveyed the unruly and rambunctious class that sat before him. The students seemed to him so much more intimidating and loud on this day, he thought. He tried to rally himself and stare down at them, but he couldn’t match their intensity and fervor.

“Silence! Silence all of you!” he shouted. “Let’s practice our mathematics. Can anyone tell me what seven times seven is?”

“No! We don’t want to do that!” a voice rose above the general outcry of revulsion.

“Come on now. This is important. You never know when you’re going to be bored and want to do some multiplying.”

“No!” the students shouted in a chorus. They went back to chattering with each other, and Fortst felt like he had lost all control.

“Ok! I just had an idea. Let’s play that game you like. The one where you put your heads down and try to guess who tags you.”

“No!” The students cried again. “That’s not what we want to do either. You know what we want!”

A sudden fearful chill took root in Fortst’s heart. It paralyzed his limbs and forced him to start breathing deeply. He looked away, shamefully, and felt himself sink further inside his skin. The students called to him, forcefully, aggressively, and unendingly.

“Tell us the story! We want to hear it! You can’t keep it from us!”

The single-mindedness of their fury unsettled him, and he became desperate for a way out. He was only a man, and he couldn’t do the impossible. He couldn’t reveal what he kept hidden even from himself.

“School is finished for today! I’m sick and need to go home! You can’t make me!” The students rebelled louder each time he spoke. Fortst had never felt so defenseless and so powerless. He slunk down onto the floor behind the lectern, hoping the students would go away and leave him alone. Tears filled his eyes and he pulled his massive trench coat over his head. He knew in that moment taking this job had been a mistake.

He recalled how he’d never imagined he’d live to be so old and how he wished he hadn’t spent so much of his time alone. It stung him that the few people he had grown to care most about had been so ill repaid for their friendship.

The rabble died down, but no one left the schoolhouse. Fortst held those painful memories with a light and trembling hand. But a rude awakening came to him in the form of Chucky, who had crawled next to him behind the lecture. His thick sides peeked out from his shirt as he leaned up against Fortst, startling him. He didn’t speak at first, but just watched with his big, brown bear eyes. Fortst felt like they were drinking him with their empathy and forgiveness.

“Teacher, you need to tell this story more than we need to hear it.” Chucky whispered into the man’s pale ears. “The past can’t get you anymore. It is waiting for you to conquer it. The only way to take control of what happened is through the telling. You’re not one to shy away from a fight, and this is how you take the fight to a story.”

Fortst gave Chucky a puzzled look. His heavy breathing started to calm down.

“I’m not afraid of a story,” Fortst whimpered.

Chucky scrambled back to his seat, leaving Fortst to eye the space he abandoned. Looking for wisdom and hoping for peace, a huffed cry escaped from his lungs, and he lurched onto his knees and up to his feet.

The silent students waited and waited, their eyes curious and receptive. Even one judging look from the crowd would have brought him to tears. But, with a nervous stutter, he ground the words through his throat.

“I’ve just never, never told anyone this before. This was supposed to be my secret, my burden, something that only haunted my dreams and looked at me from the dark. But I can’t let it haunt me anymore, my greatest failure.

“The old man, a mystic of sorts, who channeled the steps through the ground and through his bones, guided us through the wastes. And let me tell you, he would not have been able to make the journey alone. We carried him up cliffs and over rapids, through the southern fingers of the great frozen desert. Our maps became useless, and we wandered for months. Spirits cracked and healed many times, but we took the chance that a payoff unlike any ever heard of was at hand. My brothers of the badlands and I took care of our unconscious guide as best we could. We guarded him, brought him food, and urged him on.

“In some ways, he became our pet, operating on a basic level of consciousness. He often forgot what he was doing or settled down to rest while the sun still hung high in the sky. We drove him, encouraged him, or scolded him as was necessary, but deep down we empathized with him. He searched hopelessly for a way to save his village long after it had been destroyed and long after his own body had given up.

“But, slowly, signs came that we were approaching something, even if it meant that weeks or months of trekking remained. We saw his feet drag deeper into the dirt or the sand, reaching for those buried footprints. His path became more direct, and we imagined the frantic flight of the defeated trying to get as far away as possible. He seemed to sense nearby footsteps also, perhaps feeling the bustle and the commotion of those in the crowd who wouldn’t make it through the journey.

“We talked about him, complained, and judged his behavior as if he weren’t there, but eventually he led us to a low plateau in the shadow of a much taller mountain. Grasses covered the plain, but no sign of human or animal life presented itself. No insects bothered us also, which unsettled us even as we were relieved to meet our destination.

“We crossed the plain and descended into the nook before the mountain. We lowered the old man down, wondering where he would lead us next through this jagged crevasse. A fierce wind swept through and he almost fell to his death. But he stepped down on a stable ledge and looked around. The mountain wall on the other side was too far and a great distance still remained to the bottom.

“We called to the old man, shouted at him, and waited for him to guide us. ‘Which way? Let us move on!’ But still he would not move. His back supported against the rock wall, he seemed to sleep standing up. We fretted his body would give out completely and we would be stranded there, so close to our goal but lost to it forever.

“After a day of waiting on the cliffside, one of my brothers hit upon an idea of genius. He said we must have arrived, encouraging us to scour the rock face for an entrance, loose rock, a cave, anything. We couldn’t find any markings, any evidence that anything had ever existed here before. Returning to the old man, who still leaned against the ledge, we moved him to another safe place and then unleashed the full force of our strength against that rock face. We attacked, mutilated, and pierced the solid stone, chipping away at it, willing it to disintegrate.

“We applied our powers and even then only made painstaking headway. A small cave formed in the rock, enough to allow our elderly guide to give us a hint about our direction. We dug down underneath the plateau, shoveling the displaced rubble into the crevasse. Our path sloped downward, so far that little light entered and we had to build supports for the walls.

“Slashing and cutting, we delivered one last strike that caused the rock to give way completely and together we slid through the opening and fell into an open cavern. The fall was not far, just completely unexpected. When we came to our senses, we lit torches and discovered we stood in a great hall with massive pillars and intricate decorations. Dust and silt covered all surfaces, but the majesty and the scope of it beckoned our wonder and took our breath away.

“The first thing we did was ensure we could get back out again, and then we quickly moved onto the task of exploring this new environment. Carrying torches, we saw frames on the walls without paintings, wooden furniture reduced to piles of toothpicks, and embedded jewels of a kind we had never seen before. The timeless stone dwarfed all of it.