Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel (30 page)

Her mind spun at the sight of
Riddle of
Steel
.

“T-T-Truella?” Josie gasped, running her hand
over the faded cover. She had seen it float away in its plastic bag
when she and Buckwheat fell into the Kalida River. “H-how did you
get here? How can this be?”

Gently, she opened the fragile cover. Inside,
written in jaggedy blue ink in English,

Dear Josephine:

The words you are reading haven’t been
written yet.

Did I blow your mind?

Yours Truly,



P.S. Never give in or give up.

You will find what you’re looking for

somewhere near the end.

“What the hell?” she whispered in puzzlement,
but there wasn’t time to dwell on the impossibility of the book’s
location. How frustrating that the signature was crossed out!

She started at the back of the book and
carefully turned the yellowed pages. And there, folded neatly
between pages 398 and 399, she found a piece of incredibly thin
material that felt like soft linen. Upon closer inspection she
noticed hair-width fiber optic threads running through it in a
tight grid pattern. She unfolded enough to see black outlines of
continents and oceans. Where her fingers had touched its surface,
pinkish dots were left behind.

The Blood Map.

She suppressed a shriek with a palm and
crossed one leg over the other to stop from peeing herself. Folding
it back into the book, she slipped
Riddle of Steel
into her
cloak, and clambered back down the ladder, thinking of an exit
strategy. It was
her
book, with the stamp of Galatians
Bunker on the side, so technically it didn’t belong to this
library. But she wasn’t banking on the guards letting her take it
out of here without a hassle.

But first she had to find Lindsey.

Twenty minutes later, she found Master Casey
and Lindsey in the basement, seeming to enjoy one another’s
company. The redhead’s elegant hands held a stack of LEGOS formed
into the shape of a car. Their colors had faded, but the building
blocks were surprisingly intact.

“No, LEGOS never replaced real bricks. They
were children’s toys. I played with them all the time as a
kid.”

“Fascinating,” Master Casey said. He glanced
down at her hands.

“Time to go,” Josie announced.

Lindsey stood, but Master Casey took her hand
between his furry paws.

“Please, stay a little longer. I’m so
enjoying my time with you.”

“And I you,” Lindsey said, patting his paw.
“But my friend isn’t going to let me.”

“I understand,” he said softly.” I should
just be grateful for the unexpected opportunity that came my way
today. My life is richer for it.” He turned to Josie and asked in
earnest, “Did you find what you were after?”

“Nope,” she replied. “Dead end.”

Josie and Lindsey headed straight for the
doors. Josie held
Riddle of Steel
in her hand and showed it
to the soldiers, praying they wouldn’t ask a lot of questions.

“I brought this in with me.” She pointed out
the stamp on the side and how it lacked the Deposit of Knowledge’s
numbering system imprint on the spine.

The soldier’s eyes widened at the half-naked
woman in bright colors on the cover. “I’ve never seen a book like
this,” he said. “I better let the curator take a look at it before
I release it from the building.”

He motioned at one of the other guards, who
promptly left.

“What do we do?” Josie said nervously.

Lindsey flicked a glance at the door, brought
her forearm to her head and started swaying, “Oh, dear, I feel
dizzy.” She fell to the floor, unmoving.

“Oh, my, god,” Josie screamed. “You hurt my
friend!”

The guard backed up, holding up his hands. “I
swear, I didn’t touch her.”

As the guards gathered around, Josie backed
up and quietly made her exit. Thirty seconds later, Lindsey was
sauntering down the steps with a smug look on her face.

“What happened?” Josie asked.

“I turned on the
delicate-flower-who-could-do-no-harm act. They forgot all about the
book.”

The girls sauntered down the steps to where
Dante and Lars were waiting on horseback. Dante whisked Lindsey up
behind him and veered off down a side street.

“Shouldn’t we stick together?” Josie
inquired, but Lars seemed too intent on navigating the streets to
answer. He spurred their horse into a gallop as soldiers converged
on the library.

“Did you get the map?” Lars called back.

“You betcha.”

“You’re incredible.”

“Thank you for noticing,” she yelled over the
clomping of hooves. “Where are Rolf and Loyl?”

“We’re meeting them outside of the city.”

“What’s with all the law enforcement?”

“A bunch of people died in the riot back at
the arena, including several of Tectonia’s Royal Guardsman. The
Galatians who live in Tectonia are being blamed. The military is
rounding up everybody now. We have to get out of here fast.”

“But, my dad and the other Galatians who live
here…”

“...knew that helping us could lead to
trouble, but they did it anyway. If Galatia is destroyed, the
history of the human race, its culture, everything will fade away.
Your father and the others think that’s worth a little jail time.
Don’t you dare try to take their heroic sacrifice away.”

Lars turned the horse down a side alley,
which opened onto a road heavy with foot traffic. She gawked at the
sight of a man who was urinating into the street. Two Deermas
crashed through a saloon window, their horns locked together in
combat. A crowd of Bulwarks came out of the door to raise their
mugs and cheer on the fight.

“Tectonia reminds me of an old Wild West town
like on
Gunsmoke
,” Josie said.

“I was thinking the Cantina Bar in Star
Wars.” Lars turned the horse into a wide road.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she
asked.

“Of course I do.”

“When did you get so cool, Lars
Steelsun?”

“Since the day I started hanging out with
you.”

She pressed her cheek against Lars’s sturdy
back and hugged him close. It had been a long time since they were
able to converse freely—or touch one another. It felt nice. When he
placed one hand over hers, his touch electrified her nerves,
sending a pleasant shiver through her body.

As they approached a set of open-work iron
gates that led outside of the city, pedestrians formed one line,
people on horseback or wagons formed another. Both lines had
bottlenecked due to the soldiers sorting people into two
lines—Commoners in one line, everybody else in another. The
soldiers were making the Commoners roll up their sleeves to show
their hands.

“Uh-oh,” Josie said, stomach clenching.
“They’re counting fingers!”

“Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it.” Lars’s
voice sounded strained. “One of the guards is about to give us a
personal escort out of here.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve gotten good at linking with humanoids.
In fact, I can control them.”

Lars’s words reached Josie’s mind like a hard
piece of candy slowly dissolving on the tongue. Its flavor was
difficult to discern, but the longer it sat on her taste buds, the
more tantalizing it became.

A soldier, with a mustache that looked like a
whiskbroom, walked robotically toward them as if being forced by an
invisible hand.

Whisk Broom took hold of the horse’s reins
and stopped in front of the other soldiers.

“My cousins,” Broom, whose facial expression
looked as if he were about to pass a kidney stone, presented Lars
and Josie to the other soldiers.

The guards waved them on through. Josie held
her breath the whole way, not exhaling until they passed under the
arch over the iron gates, and onto a brick road.

“Wow,” she finally gasped. “Your charisma is
the Jedi Mind Trick!”

“I wish it was like that. No, the person is
aware that they’re being controlled, but can’t stop me. Now, shhh.
I’m still holding onto that guard. I want to make sure he doesn’t
tell anyone what just happened until we’re further away.”

The traffic going out of the city was sparse,
but the line going in was clogged for miles. A covered wagon full
of Commoners was several yards ahead of them. An old man in an open
rig full of crates kept a good space behind them. Pedestrians lined
the edges of the road, some alone, some in large family groups.

When they were about half a mile out, Lars
announced, “I lost my link.”

“Wow, Lars,” she marveled. “Mind
control?
The Charismatic Focus Committee is going to
plotz!”

(Josephine Rose Albright)

The landscape gradually transitioned from
noisy shacks and grimy children playing barefoot along the dusty
road into fields of black dirt with widely spaced farm houses. A
Commoner driving a team of oxen-like beasts waved at them as they
rode past. From atop their horse, Josie and Lars waved back and
kept riding for another hour until they came to a road sign.

“Slag Lane,” Lars read out loud. “This is the
turnoff.”

She tightened her arms around his waist, a
million worries filling her head. What if the guards from the gate
were pursuing them? What if Bayloo’s goons found them? What if they
couldn’t find the rest of the Red Squad? What if they got to
Galatia too late? What if Galatia was destroyed? What about Mom?
What about Jo and her children? What if they got to Galatia on time
only to discover the map didn’t work? After all, it was torn in
half, so what made Dr. Steelsun so sure it could function if
reunited? What in the world was the
Riddle of Steel
doing in
Tectonia’s library?

A girl could lose her mind entertaining so
many thoughts. She made an effort to concentrate on just one.
Lars’s marriage proposal. Had he meant it? If so, is that what she
really wanted?

“The others should be up ahead,” Lars
informed her. “I think.”

Slag Lane was a narrow horse trail that led
down a steep incline through a young forest to the banks of the
Kalida River. Josie saw a boat straight out of Viking mythology.
The bow of the ship rose up like a huge wooden horn with the head
of an angry dragon at the top. The stern had the same horn curving
in the opposite direction, carved like the dragon’s tail. Round
shields lined the top edge of the hull and a long oar poked out
between each one.

Prince Loyl and a bulky one-eyed humanoid
waited for them at the top of the gangplank.

“Good to see you, my young friends,” Loyl
greeted with a welcoming smile. “You left Galatia as helpless babes
and will be returning as great warriors. Excellent work in the
arena, by the way.”

Josie knew that the prince meant that as a
compliment, but she felt nothing but shame. For the squad to see
her in such a skimpy costume was bad enough, but for them to
witness how she had been reduced to a cold-blooded killer in a few
short months made her feel morally bankrupt.

Dante rushed down the gangplank, arms spread
wide, and they exchanged greetings. “How did you get rid of the
curse?” she asked him.

“I can’t wait to swap stories about the last
four months,” Loyl interrupted, “but as you know, time is of the
essence. Lindsey and Rolf are already on board. Please, leave your
horse with this gentleman and we will set off immediately.”

“This guy looks like he might eat horse for
breakfast,” Lars replied. “Are you sure?”

“The Zlods are a fearsome race, but rest
assured your horse will be fine with them. Their deity is the
winged horse-god, Pegoosa. The captain of this vessel has agreed to
take us all the way to Galatia in exchange for the horses—that is
if the port is operational.”

“Do we have a shot at making it home before
the allied army gets there?” Josie asked.

“If everything goes smoothly, and we don’t
suffer any delays—no.”

Josie’s heart sunk, but thankfully the
general consensus of the Red Squad seemed to be that they would
have to try anyway.

(Josephine Rose Albright)

Rows of one-eyed Zlods sat on the lower
deck. Each held a long oar between his three thick fingers. Night
and day, a Zlod at the helm of the ship beat a drum, while the
rowers moved in unison, leaning forward, then stretching backwards,
over and over again.

By afternoon, the rowers were glistening
with sweat, and not even the wind could carry away their musky
odor. At least the ride was fast and smooth, but over the course of
days, and then weeks, the trees on the bank began to blur
together—not that Josie was complaining. This was faster and a
great deal more comfortable than traveling by horseback. Strange
how life worked out sometimes. If only they had made it to Blue
Junction early in the mission, and had rented a boat like they had
originally planned, the mission would have been completed long
ago.

A merchant vessel coming down from the north
stopped to exchange news with the Zlod captain. According to the
merchant, the traffic to and from Galatia had thinned a couple of
weeks ago. He had been on his way to the new nation with a load of
sheet metal when an Alliance ship had intercepted him, ordering him
to turn back.

“Do you know how much money I’m losing
because of the blasted Alliance?” The man cussed up a storm.
“They’ve closed Galatia’s port.”

The expressions of the rest of the squad
matched the feeling of pending doom inside of Josie’s chest.

The Zlod Captain approached Loyl.

“If you can cough up a few hundred extra
meelars, I’ll take you as far past Blue Junction as I can, but
understand if we run into an Alliance vessel that forces us to turn
back, nothing is guaranteed.”