Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel (13 page)

The woman in the lobby greeted Isaiah with a
big smile. Considered handsome, Isaiah was used to being fawned
over, but the attention mostly made him uncomfortable. Since he was
young, his parents warned him not to let the admiring glances make
him vain. Looks always faded. His place in the next life wouldn’t
be based on how handsome he was in this one, so it was more
important to concentrate on building character and doing good unto
others—advice he had tried to take to heart, but hadn’t entirely
lived up to. Girls had always bent over backwards and forwards to
please him. Until Belle came along. Perhaps because of her innate
sense of dignity, her refusal to put up with being second to his
personal whims, she was the first woman he had ever loved. Since
she ended their engagement, he felt like damaged goods, a man who
had lost his way. That was on top all the other crap he had lost
with the bunker. He had just started on his master’s thesis in
psychology when the earthquake hit.

After that, he was assigned to the lowly
position of forager.
All that schooling and training for picking
flowers?
he had complained bitterly to his parents. They
chastised him, pointing out that everyone was operating in survival
mode. Each had to do their part. Nobody was better than anyone
else. Realizing he was just feeling sorry for himself, Isaiah
sucked it up and tried to be the best damn flower picker in the
Northlands.

No matter how he tried though, his heart just
wasn’t in it. Did that make him proud and arrogant—like he was too
good to be a forager? Isaiah wasn’t sure, but he was glad that
chapter of his life had come to a close, replaced by his temporary
position as combat coordinator. Although he was still learning the
moves like everybody else, his job gave him something useful to do.
He was running over next week’s practice schedule in his head when
he arrived at Grandma Elizabeth’s doorway. He expected to see Uncle
Mike, who usually took the night shift, so he was surprised to find
Uncle Barrett there with his good-looking wife.

Was it wrong to lust after your aunt? Isaiah
knew the answer to that one—yes. And disgusting too, but what could
he do when she paraded around naked in his dreams? Uncle Barrett
and Aunt Feenie hadn’t seen him yet, so he pressed his back against
the wall, trying not to look at her half-exposed breasts.

“Of course you love Red,” Isaiah heard Feenie
say, “but that has nothing to do with it. For Christ’s sake—he says
God is talking to him through that damn sinkhole. Galatia can’t
afford to have a mentally unstable man like that in power.”

“If it wasn’t for Red,” Barrett said, “there
would be no Galatia.”

“If it wasn’t for Red, someone else would
have taken the reins, and we would have settled somewhere else and
done it a lot sooner. Look around, could he have picked a worse
spot? Smack between the Regalans and the Slivens. This land has
been coveted by every nation for centuries. Now we’re sitting on it
like idiots waiting to get our heads knocked off.”

“But…”

“Barrett, my sweet.” She reached out to place
a hand on his cheek. “Haven’t you heard the whispers around the
city? Even you’ve made snide remarks about how he spends so much
time at the mouth, talking to it like an imaginary friend. Being a
psychologist doesn’t make him immune to insanity. Brotherly love
has blinded you to the harsh truth. If you care about Galatia, you
will remove your brother from office.”

“I can’t do that.”

“As sheriff of this town, it’s your duty to
protect the people from danger, and I’m not the only one who thinks
Red is as dangerous as the Alliance.”

“Who else thinks so?”

“Professor Sweet, Lucinda Moon, Nathan
Steelsun—just to name a few.”

“I can see Sweet and Moon saying that—but not
Nathan—that man has nothing good to say about anyone, except
Blanche, of course.”

“Well, he hasn’t come out and said it
directly, but I sense he would support a shift of power.”

Isaiah heard a zipper sliding down and
noticed the reflection in the mirror at the corner of the room’s
open door. “Whoa—not here.” Barrett took hold of her wrists. “I
would never go against Red.”

“I’m not asking you to,” she said, going for
his pants once again. “All I want you to do is prepare, just in
case it becomes inevitable.”

As soon as Barrett let go of her wrists, she
knelt in front of him on the floor. Isaiah couldn’t see everything,
but a guy would have to be pretty naïve to not know what she was
doing. And right there in front of comatose Grandma.

That was just so wrong.

Having heard enough, and seen enough, Isaiah
barged into the room.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said,
narrowing his eyes accusingly. Feenie’s head shot up, startled.
Uncle Barrett looked up like a man caught with his pants down.
Well, because they were down part way.

“Uh, nothing,” Uncle Barrett said. “We were
just…uh.”

“I was sucking your uncle’s cock,” Feenie
said, rubbing the tip of her index finger seductively over her
lower lip. “Has a girl ever done that for you before, sweetie?”

Isaiah was too shocked to reply and just
stood there with his mouth gaping open.

“Feenie!” Barrett said sharply. “I don’t want
you talk like that in front of my nephew.”

“He’s a grown man. I was just teasing.”

“Please, Isaiah,” Uncle Barrett said
apologetically. “You have to understand, my wife was sold into
slavery as a...well, you know. It’s going to take her a while
to—”

“To act like a Galatian prude?” Feenie said,
tears welling up in her eyes, chin quivering. “Is that what you
want me to be? I was just trying to make you feel good. I wanted to
show how much I love you. I’m sorry I don’t know how to express it
in a prim and proper way anymore.”

“Feenie, please don’t cry. I didn’t mean it
like that.”

“Uh,” Isaiah wished he hadn’t opened such a
sensitive topic. “I’m here for my shift with Grandma. I can wait
out in the lobby until you’re, uh...through.”

“I was forced into prostitution against my
will!” Feenie blurted out to Isaiah.

That was news to Isaiah, but perhaps it
explained why she acted so...well, slutty. As he tried to decide
how to reply to that, Feenie covered her face with her palms and
began to sob.

“I can admit what happened to me, but your
uncle can’t.” She sniffled. “He’s forbidden me from telling
anyone.”

“Feenie...” Uncle Barrett pleaded. “Please,
don’t twist my words.”

“Then why can’t I speak of it, Barrett? Is it
because you’re the sheriff now and you think having a former sex
slave for a wife will make you look bad?”

“No, no, it’s not like that it at all.”

“I want to believe you.” Her lower lip
trembled as tears spilled down her cheeks. “But I feel like you’re
ashamed of me. If you don’t want me anymore and prefer that I
return to the grave, I will, Barrett. That is how much I love
you.”l

“No, Feenie, I love you more than life
itself—nothing can change that. Please, don’t talk like that. I
never want to lose you again.”

Isaiah kept edging toward the door.

“You don’t have to do that,” Feenie said, her
whole body shuddering. “We’re leaving now.”

Barrett wrapped her in the hospital’s
blanket, and held her close as he helped her out into the hallway,
leaving Isaiah staring after them. Geez, what a mess. He felt sorry
for his aunt, his uncle too, but part of him was pissed at the both
of them.

The things Feenie had said about Dad weren’t
true, but if respected members of the community felt the same way,
that meant trouble up ahead. Isaiah settled into the chair next to
Grandma’s bed with a sour feeling in his stomach.

(Josephine Rose Albright)

When Josie was a little girl, riding the
rope swing in Biodome Two was the essence of freedom. The wide
arcing up and down through the air, the rhythm of her legs pumping
beneath the seat, the creaking of the prickly rope in her hands,
and at the highest point, her bare feet would plunge into the
canopy of maple leaves above her head—could life get any sweeter?
Sometimes she imagined sailing through the dome’s glass ceiling and
exploding out onto the surface of the Earth. Who knew what grand
adventure waited up there? Oh, how she loved the way the swing
transported her body and spirit to a different realm. But today the
rocking motion made her queasy.

“Let me off,” she moaned. “I gotta get
off.”

“Miss,” a voice came from far away, speaking
in a strange, but familiar language. “Miss—are you all right?”

Slowly, she opened one eye. A freckled face
attached to a pair of unfamiliar blue eyes looked down at her with
concern—a petite brunette—maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. One
front tooth was broken in half, but other than that, she was
pretty. Another girl’s face came into view. Her eyes were wide set
and brown—also pretty. She wore her blondish hair in a braid that
wound over the top of her head like a crown; pieces of straw and
dried leaves were caught in the strands.

Rubbing her temples, and feeling a wide band
of metal around her neck, Josie winced.

“You all right?” the girl asked again.

“What are you all doing up here in my tree?”
Josie demanded to know.

“What language is she speaking?” the girl
asked someone sitting across from her. “Where did you say you two
are from?”

“A place about as far away from here as you
can imagine,” a familiar male voice explained, in Commoner.

Lars.

In a flash, everything that had happened to
her since the day of the earthquake and resultant fire came back to
her—the evacuation, the wumper attack, the illness spreading
through camp, the Sliven raid, the reunion, the mission, sliding
down the mountainside, the wild ride down the Kalida, and of
course, the Seeker of the Four Winds. Her hand flew to her wrist—
he Seeker was still strapped down to her arm and straining on its
leash.

“I’m alive,” she groaned, wishing she could
return to the carefree days she had been dreaming about, take the
elevator back to her family pod, and curl up in bed with the likes
of Harry, Ron and Hermione.

“How are you feeling—nausea, headache, any
sharp pains?” she heard Lars ask. He was speaking English now,
which they hadn’t done for a while. “You’ve been out for two
days.”

Taking inventory of her body, she felt okay
other than being stiff all over. The floor she was lying on was
covered with a layer of dry mud, potato peels, and grain husks. She
sat up quickly at the sight of a pink-nosed rat sniffling around
the corner. Nasty critters had been a problem in the bunker, but
she had to hand it to them for surviving throughout the ages and
having changed very little.

The narrow room was made of wooden planks
from top to bottom. The smell of dirty arm pits mingled with the
even stronger scent of hot apple cider. A dim lantern swayed gently
back and forth from the ceiling.

The two girls were wearing old-fashioned
ankle-length dresses. They were sitting on a long bench that lined
one side of the room. Since they had four fingers on each hand,
they must be Commoners. Each of them had a metal collar around
their necks lined to chains affixed to the wall. Josie’s fingers
went to her own neck.

“What the hell!” She was chained, too. “Who
put this frickin’ thing on me?”

“Shhh,” the brunette pleaded. “Don’t make a
fuss or Captain Tolbit will send someone down with a whip. Trust
me, you don’t want that.”

“A whip!”

“Shhh!” both girls admonished.

Josie’s eyes traveled up a ladder leading to
a square of light on the ceiling. The the sun was shining through
its metal grate, illuminating a square patch on the floor of the
otherwise dingy and narrow room.

“Don’t even think about it,” Lars warned from
a few feet away.

She turned to see him sitting on a bench
along the opposite wall with three young male Commoners. They were
chained in the same manner as the girls, except their wrists and
ankles were cuffed as well. Each captive held something that looked
like a potato peeler.

That’s when she noticed that Lars held a wet
white lump in his left hand.

“What are you doing?” she demanded to
know.

“Peeling potatoes,” Lars said flatly.

“Well, you certainly seem nonchalant for a
guy chained to the wall.”

“Crying and complaining won’t help, so what
would you have me do?”

“What is this place?”

“I thought it was our lucky day when a ship
plucked us out of the Kalida. Should have known better. It’s a
slave ship.”

“We can’t just sit here.” Struggling to her
feet, the weight of the clanking chains instantly became heavier.
“We gotta escape!”

“There are ten armed Commoners up there, six
Gargantuans, two dudes that look like werewolves, and one that
defies description,” Lars said. “Say we do break out of our
chains—how do you suppose we get past them without any
weapons?”

“We’ll charisma their asses.”

“Josie,” Lars raised an eyebrow, sounding
annoyingly like her father, “even charisma has its limits. There
are simply too many of them.”

Pulling herself onto the bench, nursing a
raging headache, Josie groaned. Every bone ached. Her head felt
like cotton.

“What about Bolt and Buckwheat?”

“I think they made it to shore.”

“A slave ship, huh,” she said. “Well, at
least they don’t intend to kill us.”

“Not right away, anyway,” Lars said cynically
in English. “I’ve been talking to the other prisoners. You girls
will be sold into domestic service or prostitution, while the men
will go to the labor houses or mines and be worked ‘til they drop.
The average life expectancy is about six months for the males,
about two years for the women.”