Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel (43 page)

White boards were affixed all the way up the
height of the fence behind home plate. Gizmo had told them the
boards served as a widescreen for free public viewings of old
movies. It was always a grand old time with popcorn, fruit punch,
and fried corn crispies sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

Josie sighed, hoping that the future held
more of the same. For now it was nice to have a temporary respite
from the chaos, however short-lived the lull. The sun was rising,
but hazy gray clouds were rolling in fast. Not mystical clouds,
just ordinary rain clouds with a strong front wind, stirring up the
dust. She shivered, not from the cold so much, but nerves.

So much was riding on the map. What if it
didn’t work?

A motley group of proud-looking Westerners
were milling around the bases, with the horned Bulwarks at First
Base, the cat-like Regalans at Second, the human-looking Commoners
at Third, and the velvety brown Deermas grazing out in right
field.

Josie picked out the infamous Bulwark leader
by his sledgehammer hand. Chief Krom. He had a long tuft of black
under his chin. His horns were decorated to the top with jewelry, a
sign of his many achievements. Hogard had said Chief Krom was a
great leader, but the way he was snorting and stamping, he reminded
Josie of a spoiled child having a temper tantrum. A wound on his
cheek was still bleeding and he kept dabbing it with a lace-trimmed
hankie.

Prince Loyl was there among the leaders.
Josie waved, but he pretended not to see her. How rude. A Commoner
princess dressed in full armor, except for a tiara on her head, was
busy picking brambles out of her hair. The leader of the Deermas
was limping and a piece of antler twirled by a fiber as he walked
tiredly down the main aisle on all fours. There must have been a
hundred leaders and their most trusted companions in all, in an
interesting range of humanoid races. Josie strained to hear their
conversations, but couldn’t make out anything useful.

In front of one of the dugouts, chubby ole
Hannah and her staff kept the buffet table stocked with grapes,
berries, cheeses, crackers, breads, cookies, meats, wine and
juices. Gizmo said she had recently opened a cafe/bakery in town
and the food was friggin’ fantastic. Josie’s mouth watered as the
table overflowed with snacks. Gizmo was up near the front sucking
on a salty soft pretzel as he adjusted the projector.

“Do you think Red knew that we would return
with the map in the nick of time?” Lars nudged Josie in the ribs
with an elbow. “Or was he just covering his bases?”

Josie burst out laughing at his pun.

He smiled at her reaction, something neither
them did enough of anymore. She patted his hand and snuggled into
his side. The conversations taking place all over the baseball
diamond hummed with nervous energy.

“I can feel everyone’s anxiety,” Lars
murmured, “The Western leaders are worried this is a trap to lure
them into one place, where we can kill them off in one fell
swoop.”

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” Josie
grumbled. “My god, Lars, what if we’ve placed our faith in the
Blood Map for nothing?”

Everyone quieted when an elderly Galatian
woman with black hair heavy with gray strolled in toward the
pitcher’s mound. She wore a velvet maroon robe—a genuine
bathrobe—and a pair of fuzzy pink slippers. In one hand, she
clutched an over-sized gavel with a silvery stem as long as her
forearm. Its crystal head was the size of a Ball canning jar. A
dozen Galatians with magnificent angelic swords surrounded her,
including Isaiah, Michael and Josie’s very own mother.

“How come they all got cool swords and we
didn’t?” Josie moaned. “Even my mom, and your grandpa have one,
while the two humans who actually know how to use them sit here
empty-handed.”

“Is that Elizabeth Fade?” Lars asked.

“Don’t ask me,” Josie said, folding her arms
across her chest with a humph. “All I know is that a miracle
happened in Galatia and the Red Squad missed it. Then, after all we
did for our country, we’re told to shut up and save the snacks for
the visitors—the visitors, who may I remind you, were trying to
kill us a minute ago. I don’t care what Hannah says, I’m going to
get me a cookie.”

“Josie, the fate of Galatia is still up in
the air. Give everything a chance to settle down and I’m sure
you’ll get your cookie. Maybe two, if you’re a good girl.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Yes.”

She sulked some more, but Lars was probably
right. Patience had never been her strong point.

Professor Sweet climbed onto the stage to
stand behind a podium, every hair in perfect place as he adjusted
his reading glasses on the end of his nose. The microphone
squeaked, startling the visitors.

“That jerk got a sword, too?” Josie muttered
in disbelief.

When the professor’s voice boomed too
loudly, the Westerners looked like they were going to crap their
pants, but Gizmo adjusted the volume to a more comfortable
level.

“Nothing to fear, folks,” Professor Sweet
gave a nervous laugh, tapping on the microphone. “It’s a mechanical
device that amplifies sound waves. There’s nothing magical about
it.” The audience’s blank stares hinted that it was time to move
on. The professor gestured with a wide sweep of his arm toward the
woman in the bathrobe making her way to the projector. “I introduce
to you, highly esteemed representatives of the Western Alliance,
the newly ordained leader of Galatia, Judge Elizabeth
Wakeland.”

The visitors looked to Red, who directed
their gazes back to the woman in the bathrobe with a hand
gesture.

“Behold, the new leader of Galatia.”

The Western leaders broke out into more
conversation.

“Due to recent events,” Professor Sweet
quickly explained, “Galatia’s hierarchy has been rearranged. At the
top sits the judge. Below her is the General of Galatia, our former
mayor, Red Wakeland. Next to the General sits the Bishop of
Galatia, a position held by Father Bob...er, Robert Donovan.”

Murmurs went through the crowd, but the new
hierarchy seemed right to Josie.

“We have procured the Blood Map in its
entirety,” Elizabeth’s aged voice rose loud and clear. “You cannot
all handle the map, it’s too delicate a treasure, but I will allow
you to send up your experts, one per race, to weigh in on its
authenticity.”

Frustrated, Josie pulled Lars down the
bleachers to get a closer look at the proceedings, sneaking their
way onto the baseball field, stopping at a buffet table near second
base to grab a handful of cookies and a cup of fruit juice.

“Snickerdoodles,” Josie said as the taste of
sugar and cinnamon danced on her tongue.

“I got peanut butter,” Lars said through a
mouthful, adding more to the stack of cookies in his hands. The
light from Gizmo’s projector lit up the big white board behind home
plate. The Westerns recoiled, gasping in shock at the huge image of
the Blood Map on the white board.

Professor Daynor, the Galatians’ map expert,
took the podium. Prince Loyl sent up one of his own scholars, Lady
Sandora of the Bountiful Vineyards, who confirmed to all in
attendance that Judge Wakeland’s Blood Map was genuine.

“Now that we got that out of the way,” Judge
Elizabeth said. “Someone tell me how this damnable thing
works.”

That brought out a few outraged expressions,
but mostly it was snickers all around.

The Regalan, Lady Sandora, assumed a tenured
academician’s pose before the microphone.

“In theory, every time we take a breath,
every time we touch the earth, every word we speak, every action we
take, leaves a piece of us behind in the world forever. Even more
so for an entire species. Over time races have come, races have
faded away, and even if history should forget, the Earth does not,
and the collective conscience remembers. The Blood Map reads the
collective conscience.”

“We think it works at a biochemical level,”
Professor Daynor added. “Detecting trace elements in the ground,
comparing it to living DNA.”

“You speak strangely,” Sandora said, “But I
assume your words mean something to the Galatians. The map needs a
drop of blood from the species asserting First Rights, and the
species with which it wishes to compare itself. In other words, the
blood of the Regalans, Bulwarks, Commoners, Deermas, and all the
species represented here today, will be compared to the
Galatians.

“Let’s get this over with so we can all go
home or get on with the killing,” Chief Krom said, offering a
finger to Dr. Katrina who was standing, lancet at the ready. “Now
take my blood and be done with it.”

Nobody was paying attention to Lars and
Josie, as they lingered at the buffet table where they were
shoveling crackers and cheese into their mouths.

Chief Krom’s hairy finger was larger than
life on the screen, as Doctor Katrina pricked his finger and
squeezed out a drop of blood on the tear-drop shape at the bottom
of the map. A second later, a net of red light shot out of the map
in all directions. It spread over the baseball diamond, scanning
the ground, expanding across the city, to disappear into the
horizon.

“Shit balls of fire,” Josie whispered in
awe. “Did you just see that?”

“It is circling the globe at the speed of
light, collecting data,” Professor Daynor offered into the
microphone.

A moment later, the grid of light reappeared
on the horizon, to absorb back into the map. The land masses on the
map began to fill with a red color, diminishing to a circle that
migrated from deep in Eastern territory over to the West and back
to the Eastern edge of the Kalida River to stabilize and spread
out.”

“The map is looking for traces of Chief
Krom’s blood line, going back to the beginning of time,” Sandora
said, “And is cross-referencing that with geographical location. In
order for the Blood Map to pick up a blood line in a particular
locale, a large concentration of people from the same bloodline had
to be settled there for at least a thousand years.”

“What if a different species occupied the
same land, but at different time periods?” Judge Elizabeth
asked.

“The map always defers to
the first occupants—hence the name of the law—
First
Rights.”

“I see human characteristics in every
species here today,” Judge Elizabeth said. “Especially in the
Commoners—how does the map differentiate between partially and
wholly human races?”

“It looks at the DNA,” Professor Daynor
offered. “At least that’s what we think it does. If there’s alien
DNA in the mix then the map sorts it out as a unique species. And
it looks for settlements with a similar ratio of human and alien
DNA, counting it as one people.”

“Who is next?” Dr. Katrina asked.

Prince Valdor went up next; a drop of his
blood landed on the teardrop, turned blue and the network of blue
started at the same place where the Bulwark line had begun to
migrate and expand West of the Kalida River and far into the
Southlands, stretching beyond Tectonia’s borders all the way to the
southern seas. He nodded in satisfaction, saying smugly, “Tectonia
is exactly where she belongs.”

Next, Prince Loyl offered a drop of his
blood. The map assigned his blood a green shade, started out in the
same place as the Bulwarks and Commoners and followed a wide
migration pattern until finally settling and expanding in the
Northlands, exactly where his people lived now. Every species
represented offered a drop of blood to yield similar results.

Sandora explained to the crowd. “The color
the map assigns to the bloodline is based on the order of
submission. The first drop of blood is always given a shade of red,
the second drop of blood is always blue, the third is always
orange, and so on.”

Judge Elizabeth offered her blood for the
Galatians, but Chief Krom protested.

“How do we know this isn’t a setup?”

“I assure you it is not,” Elizabeth said
with a frown.

“Galatian blood is Galatian blood,” Chief
Krom said. “It shouldn’t matter whose is drawn?”

Sandora nodded. “You are correct.”

“Then let me choose from among you.”

“Suit yourself,” Judge Elizabeth said,
folding her arms.

“Prince Valdor,” Chief Krom said. “I ask you
to pick a random Galatian.”

The young prince scanned the Galatians at
the forefront. His brow lifted at the sight of Josie and Lars
covered with dirt and blood, stuffing their mouths at the buffet
table.

“A drop of that peasant woman’s blood,”
Prince Valdor curled up his upper lip in disgust.

“You mean Josie?” Judge Elizabeth asked in
surprise.

“Me?” Josie’s voice was muffled by crumbs
falling out of her mouth. It came out as “Mwf?”

Prince Valdor nodded.

Josie spit the cookies out and hurried to
the projector, heart thumping in her ears. What if the map didn’t
work? What if her Albright/Spaulding blood didn’t produce the
desired results, sealing Galatia’s fate? Knees shaking, she hardly
felt the pinprick, nor the doctor squeezing out a drop of blood on
the map.

The map depicted her bloodline in a light
shade of purple. It started in a different place than all of the
others, across the ocean on a faraway continent Josie didn’t
recognize. All voices fell quiet as the network remained still.

“The map proves the Galatians don’t belong
here.”

“Hold on,” General Red said. “Give it
time.”

A line broke from the original spot, and
three more lines from that, and three more from each of the three.
The purple lines crossed the oceans to other continents, spread and
networked, On this continent where they currently stood, the lines
converged, split and crossed the Kalida river, to cover the
Kingdoms of the Bulwarks, the Regalans, the Deermas, the Commoners
and all others until every inch of land, save a stretch of islands,
was covered in Galatian purple.