Threads That Bind (Havoc Chronicles Series Book 1) (20 page)

Dad shook his head. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. Eric’s just not used to dealing with disappointment.”

“Disappointment?”

“You didn’t pick his weapon,” said Rhys. “I think he had been hoping to be your trainer.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t really considered it that way. Now I felt bad, almost like I had rejected him – which was not my intention at all. I just liked the varé better than the staff. It was nothing personal. “So, who is going to be training me with the varé?” I asked.

“I’ll give you some instruction on basic techniques,” said Dad. “But you really need a Berserker who is also bonded to his weapon to fully train you, so that means Rhys will be working with you.”

Rhys smiled and blushed slightly. It was amazing how a simple smile could transform his face from merely handsome to breathtakingly beautiful.

If picking the varé meant seeing more of that, then I definitely had made the right choice.

***

Once I had selected my weapon, Dad went out of town for a week. Apparently the varé is made from the arm of a nasty demon-like creature called a drall, and they’re rather hard to find. Dad and Shing went off searching for one while I was stuck in high school under the protective custody of Rhys and Eric.

Eric continued to view my choice in weaponry as a personal rejection. He didn’t say anything directly about it, but he was distant and moody for a few days. At first I felt guilty and tried to be extra nice, but after awhile I realized he was milking the situation for all the attention he could get – so I quit playing his game. After that he got over it and went back to being his usual mischievous self.

I guess being stuck in high school when you have already been through it is excruciatingly boring. I quickly discovered that a bored Eric is an Eric who starts looking for ways to cause trouble. Fortunately he usually channeled this impulse in healthy ways - like tormenting Ginger. I guess he figured that after everything she’d done to me, she was fair game.

Some of his more elaborate pranks required quite a bit of planning, not to mention money. He completely filled her car with Styrofoam peanuts, then had it wrapped in extra strong shrink wrap; he hired a locksmith to change the combination lock on her locker; he even arranged for a professional comedian to heckle her during cheerleading practice.

All of which, of course, she blamed on me. She tried several times to get back at me, but Eric always seemed to be two steps ahead. He twisted each of Ginger’s pranks so they backfired on her.

Each day before gym class, Amy updated me on the latest school opinion poll regarding my relationship with Eric and Rhys. It seemed that around two-thirds of the school thought I was dating Eric, the other third voted for Rhys, and the entire female population insisted that I ought to make up my mind so one of the two would go back on the open market.

When I got home from school on Friday, I saw Dad’s truck in the driveway. Rhys and I rushed into the house. Eric came too, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Dad looked tired and scruffy, like he hadn’t slept the entire week – or bothered with basic hygiene rituals for that matter. He smelled like old sweat and campfires.

“Well?” I asked. “Did you find one?”

“I did,” said Dad. He stretched his arms and yawned. “You and Rhys should get to bed early tonight. The three of us leave tomorrow morning.”

We got up before the sun to reach the airport by seven o’clock. Once we checked in, Dad handed me my boarding pass. I looked at the destination – Salt Lake City, Utah.

“We’re going to Salt Lake City?” I asked. I guess I hadn’t expected the creature to be living in a city.

“That we are,” said Dad, but he didn’t elaborate. He was strangely tight-lipped about this whole trip, only telling me bits and pieces of where we were going and what we were going to do. I quickly got annoyed with his evasiveness and, once we were through airport security, I went to talk to Rhys.

“So, what was it like when you fought a drall?” I asked. “Did you go to Salt Lake or someplace else?” I figured whatever reason Dad had for being evasive, he had probably already co-opted Rhys, so I was going to have to get my information without directly asking about what we were going to do.

“It was a long time ago,” said Rhys. He looked over at Dad, who was walking a little bit ahead of us, still clearly within hearing distance.

I gently grabbed his arm and slowed my pace until Dad was farther ahead.

“Ok,” I said. “What’s going on? Neither of you will tell me anything about what we are going to actually do. Why the secrecy?”

Rhys looked down at my arm, now intertwined with his. Self-conscious, I let go. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

He let out a sigh. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “Your Dad asked me to not tell you where we are going or what we will do there. He seemed to think you would get stressed and start obsessing. He said you would do better dealing with the unknown right now than worrying about what’s coming.”

“I’m the Berserker,” I said. “Not him. Why are letting him boss you around?”

“He may have lost this powers,” said Rhys, “But I’ve spent over a hundred years with him, and I trust his judgment. I’m just along as a safety measure. Your dad’s in charge of this expedition.”

I hadn’t thought about the fact that Rhys and Dad had known each other for that long. Over a hundred years? That was longer than most people would ever live. It was hard to think of them as being that old. Well, maybe not so hard for Dad. He had always seemed old to me, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to think of him as being
really
old. But Rhys? How could someone who looked my age be... how old was he? I had never had asked. Hopefully, he and I would have some time together on this trip so I could ask him all my questions.

Clearly right now wasn’t a good time, since they both seemed determined to keep me in the dark. Fine, if they didn’t want to talk, I could play that game too.

All during the flight, I kept silent and didn’t ask any more questions. I kept silent as Dad rented a large SUV and we began driving south. Since it was early November, I had brought my heaviest jacket, but I quickly discovered that it was much colder in Utah than in Washington – emphasis on the much.

As we drove, the landscape slowly changed from a large city surrounded by mountains, to small cities surrounded by mountains, and finally gave way to wilderness full of beautiful red rock formations. Having lived in Washington my whole life, I found the dry rocky landscape completely different and strangely beautiful. It almost felt like I was on a different planet.

After three hours of driving I couldn’t keep silent any more.

“Dad, will you please tell me what’s going on?” I asked. “This is driving me nuts.”

“Sure,” he said, a sickly sweet cheerful note in his voice. “I was going to tell you once we landed, but you seemed to be enjoying the silence, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but then I saw Dad’s huge smile in the rearview mirror. Instead of talking, I reached over the seat and punched him on the shoulder.

“You are such a... dad!”

Both he and Rhys burst out laughing, which made me feel like a petulant five-year-old. And that didn’t exactly help my mood. I folded my arms and slumped back into my seat, staring out the window. “Fine,” I said. “What’s the plan?”

“I found a drall living in a place called Goblin Valley. We’ll be there in another hour and half or so. I’ve rented us a hotel room and loaded it with supplies. We’ll pick up the gear and check out before going to our campsite.”

“Campsite?” I asked. “We’re going camping? What is it, like thirty degrees outside? Why can’t we keep the room and sleep there?”

Dad gave Rhys a significant look. “It will be cold tonight,” he said.

“Ok, I said. What’s going on? What was that look all about?”

“It’s nothing,” said Dad. “I’d just warned Rhys that you probably wouldn’t be too thrilled about the prospect of camping in such cold weather. That’s why we didn’t want to tell you until we got closer.”

 I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more, the fact that we were going to be camping in the freezing weather or the fact that Dad seemed to think I would throw some sort of hissy fit about it.

I was not going to throw a fit. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to talk them out of the whole camping thing.

“So, why are we not staying in the hotel room you already have?” I asked. A perfectly reasonable question, and I even said it calmly – sort of. 

Dad chuckled. I wanted to hit him again.

“We’re about to cut off a drall’s arm and take it with us,” Dad said. “It’s rather large and not the kind of thing you can easily sneak into a hotel room. Besides, we have to prepare the arm for the bonding. It’s a rather messy process.”

I had no answer for that. Prepare the arm? That didn’t sound good.

We reached the hotel – a small but nicely-kept place. Inside the room, Dad had left all sorts of camping gear. There were heavy winter coats for all of us, sleeping bags rated to below zero, and sturdy tents. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

In addition to the usual equipment, there was a large black pot – more of a cauldron, really – that looked like something out of a story about witches.

“Do I even want to know what that’s for?” I asked.

Dad shrugged and tried to pick up the pot. He managed to get it a few inches off the floor before dropping it. “Rhys, can you give me a hand?” he asked. “It took both Shing and I to get this in here.”

“Hold on, Dad,” I said. I closed my eyes and concentrated. I visualized myself in situations when I had berserked before. Slowly, my senses heightened and I felt power flood into me. I stopped before a full berserking, leaving myself in the pre-zerk state.

I walked over to cauldron and easily picked it up. I smiled at Dad, who looked shocked. “Are we putting this in the SUV?” I asked.

He nodded.

I grinned and carried it out.

As I approached the room, I overheard Dad and Rhys talking together. I caught the tail end of the conversation.

“I know it’s not a normal Berserker power,” said Rhys. “There’s nothing normal about this situation.”

My return put an end to their discussion and the three of us worked quickly to get all the gear out to the vehicle. Dad watched me more closely than usual while we worked. Clearly, the fact that my powers were different unsettled him.

Once packed, we drove out to the campsite and set up the tents. It wasn’t a commercial campsite – not in the regulated and divided into areas with running water and electricity kind of definition. This was just a relatively flat piece of land not too far from the back side of Goblin Valley, but completely off the main roads and very isolated. This location was clearly about privacy, not comfort.

Dad and Rhys suspended the black cauldron two feet above the ground on a cross post supported by two metal forks. I gave my best evil witch cackle and recited the witches’ lines from Macbeth, but Dad and Rhys didn’t seem to find it as amusing as I did.

My heavy coat was puffy and surprisingly warm. Dad had also outfitted me with warm gloves, a hat, and fur-lined boots. It was all sort of cute in an outdoorsy way. Not the kind of thing I would want on a date, but it worked well for wilderness use.

Rhys and Dad both wore down-filled coats with fur-lined hoods and looked like Eskimos transplanted from the north. As the sun began to set, the temperature plummeted. My clothing kept me mostly warm, but my face grew cold and my nose began to feel like it was frozen.

Dinner consisted of cold sandwiches and chips, along with some granola bars. I had been hoping for something warm, but Dad and Rhys said that lighting a fire might attract unwanted attention, and didn’t want to light one until it was absolutely necessary.

By six o’clock the sun had set and Dad turned to Rhys. “It’s time,” he said. “I’m going to go in and make sure the drall is still there. Stay here with Madison and I’ll come back as quickly as I can.” He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and left.

I sat on a half buried log next to Rhys and for the first ten minutes neither of us spoke. We sat together listening to the nocturnal noises around us.

I wanted to ask Rhys about who he was, where he came from, and all the things I never got a chance to ask him with Eric around, but now that we were alone it felt too awkward, and I didn’t know how to start.

Fortunately, Rhys broke the silence.

“Your father is a good man,” he said. A strange way to start a conversation, but at least we were talking.

I nodded. “He is. How long have you known each other?”

“He was my first contact in the Berserker world, around a hundred and sixty years ago. He helped me understand that there were others like me, and that my Berserker powers were neither a curse, nor evil.”

“How old are you?” I asked, unable to help myself.

Rhys smiled. “That’s something I haven’t thought about in a long time. Let’s see... this year I’m one hundred and seventy eight. Does it bother you that I’m so old?”

What was that supposed to mean? Age didn’t matter for friends. It would only be an issue if he wanted to be more than friends.

“Would it help if I told you that physically I’m only twenty years old?”

His eyes were fixed on mine. I felt my breathing tighten. I looked away. This wasn’t the kind of conversation I was ready to have right now.

“Tell me about when you met my dad,” I said. “What was it like for you to find out you were a Berserker?”

Rhys’ face went rigid. Clearly I had hit a nerve, or several hundred of them.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. It’s just that back at the airport when you said you had known my dad for over a hundred years, I realized that I really don’t know anything about you. Aside from the fact that you’re a Berserker.”

Rhys leaned his head back and stared up at the sky. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I... don’t normally talk about myself,” he said. “But you’re right, I should be more open.” He paused for several moments before continuing. “I grew up in a small fishing village in Wales called Aberaeron off the coast of Cardiganshire. My father owned a fishing boat, and I was learning the trade from him. I had recently turned fifteen, and Dad and I were out fishing when a sudden storm took us by surprise. The wind howled and huge waves tossed our little boat like a toy.

“One particularly hard wave threw my father into the mast, knocking him unconscious. Before I could get to him, a second wave washed him overboard and into the thrashing ocean. I reached out and was able to grab onto his wrist, but I wasn’t strong enough to pull him in.

“That’s when I felt the change come over me. Everything became clear, and I suddenly had the strength to pull my father back onto the boat. It wasn’t until I had hauled him on board that I realized I was glowing. I rode out the storm holding myself and my unconscious father in the boat, wanting to pray to God to let us live, but afraid to try because I had turned into some sort of demon and wasn’t worthy.