Wordscapist: The Myth (The Way of the Word Book 1) (28 page)

    “You think you’re the only who can do any rescuing around here?”

     She had been weaving a scape when I saw her kneel on the floor. I felt pretty stupid after all the stunts I had just pulled in my panic. Relief washed over me. She was safe, and that was what mattered. As the adrenaline retreated, I felt the pain from my badly abused leg surging back. I limped to the door and almost collapsed on the floor.

     “We cannot rest now. We have to go. There is someone with a CM out there and it is sure to have detected what I just did. They will be here in no time.” Dew pulled my hand and tugged.

     I pulled myself up and went to the kitchen. I picked a bag from the storeroom and stuffed it with whatever provisions I could. I slung the bag on my back and returned to the hall. Meanwhile Dew had found a couple of jackets inside. Equipped as well as we could be, we headed for the door. I winced as I saw the state it was in. I was going to have to pay my friend for all the provision pilfering and the damage done to the house.

     I saw the axe lying forlorn on the floor and left it where it was – I was likely to do more damage to myself than anyone else. I looked around for something I could pick up to use as a weapon. I saw a bamboo staff, thick enough to do damage and long enough to use as a walking stick. I picked it up, groaning as my leg complained when I leaned over. I wondered where De Vorto had gone off to, especially when we needed him the most. I nodded at Dew to indicate that I was ready. It was close to dawn when we took off into the jungle, the rain still pouring down.

***

      It was a crazy trek through the forest. We jogged while I could, and walked when the pain got too much to bear. Dew kept muttering a healing scape that stopped the pain from completely crippling me. We did not stop though. We did not dare. I kept trying to send De Vorto telepathic messages. But I did not know if I was getting it right and whether they actually made it through to him. I found myself regretting the separation scape. At times like this one can even miss an insane voice in the head. I would have loved to have been able to teleport us all out of there to some other location where no one could follow us. I could feel the gift slithering in me, but it was too alien and way too scary for me to risk without De Vorto’s commands to guide me.

     “Where are we going, Slick?” she gasped, leaning against a tree for a moment.

     I stopped too, using my staff for support. The incessant rain was beginning to get on my nerves. I wanted to be some place where we could be dry and safe. Did I have a plan? I decided to cook one up for the moment. “There is a river nearby. If we can reach there and walk upriver to the tribal area we may find a find a boat. Then we can try and make our way to the nearest inhabited island - that is, one with civilised people living on it.”

      Dew gave me one of her looks as I stumbled through the crazy plan. “Sounds good,” she said, “Let’s go.” And she took off again.

      I stared after her incredulously. She actually thought the plan sounded good. It was complete suicide! I would have to think of an alternative before this woman actually started executing my plan. I decided that I would figure it out along the way.

     We continued until we stumbled onto the river bank, more by chance than design. Then, we started moving upstream, following the plan, word for word. Me and my big mouth! By this time, night had receded and the approaching dawn made the going a bit easier. My leg had gone almost numb and I had stopped thinking about it. I just focussed on the next step, gritting my teeth against the pain and discomfort. Dew was incredibly tough and did not utter a word of complaint. Finally, a couple of hours into our escape, we took our first real break. We settled down and made a meal of some tinned pineapples and biscuits, washing it down with juice. I was dripping wet and something squelched with every move I made. Right then, I would have killed for dry clothes. The rain had lessened to a light drizzle though, and things were looking up. “Can they track you here?” I asked Dew, still thinking of the trace scape she had talked about.

     “No,” Dew said, “That works only in close areas. They will assume that we teleported out and will now be looking for the port location so that they can trace out the next point in the port.”

     “You mean to say they can always track down a teleport?”

      “Not necessarily. There are ways to erase the tracks of a teleport. But it takes a lot of skill to pull off something like that. Even senior wordsmiths have trouble doing something like that.”

     “Hmmm,” I digested that bit, pulling my trouser leg up to ease the pain.

     “Slick, your leg has gone purple,” Dew gasped. I looked at it myself and realised that she was right. The leg had also doubled in size. I felt sick to the stomach at seeing my own leg looking like a rotting piece of meat. “I guess the healing scape you used has not been working,” I said, my voice quivering a bit.

     “I’m sorry,” Dew whispered, tears coming to her eyes, “I was focussing on easing your pain. I am not very good at healing. I was training with Lonigan to be a hunter. Healing is not something I am expected to know.”

     “A hunter?” I asked, gulping inwardly at the ominous sounding word.

      “Clichéd revenge story. My dad was a Free wordsmith. He was assassinated by a squad of Guild Hunters. I was born with the gift, and the Free Word took me in right from the beginning. When I made it to breathsmith, I was asked to choose a vocation. The choice was clear. I wanted to be a hunter. I wanted to fight the Guild and its assassins.” Dew said all this as she folded her scarf and then tied it around my leg, above the injury; a rudimentary tourniquet. “This will prevent the infection from spreading to the rest of the leg,” she said, as she tightened the knot.

     “Where the hell is that blessed dead wordsmith when you need him?” I swore freely, letting some of my frustration out.

    “Right here. And I am not a dead wordsmith. I am very much alive.” De Vorto was hovering right above us, trying to look outraged while smirking; a feat he managed to accomplish rather successfully.

Dew

      I looked out at the blue expanse, unable to believe where I was - a small boat in the midst of the ocean. We figured we couldn’t head towards any of the other islands because of the danger and were making for the Indian coastline, trying to sneak in somewhere close to Pondicherry, a place with civilisation enough to give us options. Provided we got there in the first place.

      We were in a boat. And we had a few hundred miles to go. It was also really cold. Being a wordsmith helped make the boat a little safer than it was. But there was only so much you could do when you were taking on the might of the ocean. It didn’t help that the two companions I had were the most powerful wordsmiths I had ever known, yet were currently quite useless in terms of weaving up assistance. One of them was lying on the floor of the boat, fast asleep. I looked at him for a while, a thousand mixed emotions roaring through my head. It was all his fault. Or maybe it wasn’t. I couldn’t decide. I looked at De Vorto, who was flitting above the boat, his face turned towards an imagined horizon in the distance. The faerie form might have given him supernatural vision. I couldn’t say. I called out to him.

“De Vorto!” A moment later, he was fluttering beside me. “Can you sit down some place? It’s difficult to talk to someone hovering mid-air,” I said.

     “Well, it’s a lot more effort to appear to be sitting. You see, there’s no real matter to me, so I don’t need to rest. Also, it’s quite a pleasure to fly about. You really should try it sometime!” De Vorto was putting on an air of fake cheer. That was scary. What little I knew of him, he didn’t care much for other people. If he was trying to lift my spirits, things were definitely worse than they were some time before.

     I gulped and waved my hand, “I think I’ll pass. I’m comfortable sitting. I just wanted to talk for a bit. And I don’t think I want to talk to him. Not for a while at least.”

     De Vorto looked at Slick and nodded, “I can understand that. I was in his head all this while and now that I’m out, the last thing I want to do is talk to him.”

     “Did I do the right thing?” I was still staring at the ocean. I was trying hard to gulp down a huge lump in my throat that kept showing up, threating to burst the dam that had been building for a while now.

      I could feel De Vorto giving me a long look. I looked at him as he lowered himself to the side of the boat, right next to me. He raised his hand and blew a small puff of glowing dust at me. I blinked in surprise. He smiled and said, “You acted on instinct, but you acted well. It is difficult to act against your family, against your warren. But you followed your heart, and it guided you well. Stop worrying about it.”

     “But for him? Is he really worth this?” I gestured angrily at Slick.

      “You tell me, Dew,” De Vorto hovered a little closer and looked at me seriously. “You met him barely a few hours ago and were ready to fight your own folks for him. You followed him into a teleport and then onto this frail little boat. After taking such big steps, you should not have room for doubts any more. You have long since crossed the point of no return.”

     I took a deep breath that turned into a sob. I couldn’t help myself. The tears came, and I was sobbing openly. I could feel Slick stir, and I tried to control myself, but I couldn’t. De Vorto moved closer, warming me with his glow, unable to do more. He continued talking instead, “I have been in his head, Dew. I know him better than he knows himself. He is a good boy, though a confused one. I wouldn’t have wished this curse on my worst enemy. He has to deal with the corrupting power that I have burdened him with. What’s worse, it is a lot more than I had to control. That cursed scape wrenched more than just my spirit from the ether. It sucked in every legend, every myth, there ever was of the Wordscapist. And some of those legends are not pretty. I was in his head and even I was overwhelmed at the storm of power that swarmed up each time I guided him through his scapes. He now has to deal with that, how to harness it and do right with it. And all he has is us...”

     He made sense, but for some reason, it made me want to cry all the more. I couldn’t stop the stupid tears! De Vorto went on, “Don’t cry, li’l one. Don’t cry. It will all be ok. Eventually. For now, you need to be strong.” He gave me a little pat that I almost could feel, though it did send a shiver down my spine. Through my tears, I could see Slick looking at me, his face a mask of misery. De Vorto hadn’t known he was awake and listening. At that moment, I didn’t care. I lay my head in my arms and sobbed away.  

CHAPTER 14

Journeys

They asked where

He was here

And everywhere else too

They asked when

He was in now

And in everywhen too

Some journeys are too big

To keep to one time and place

Slick

     I leaned against one of the few sides of the raft that was lean-worthy. I took care to hold on to a bit of rope, just in case. I looked at Dew, who had been silent for most of the trip. She didn’t want to talk to me, and I had stopped trying after a bit. De Vorto was flitting over the raft, our nest-less crow who kept giving us updates on how he could see no land. Of course there was no land. We were trying to cross one half of the Indian Ocean, after all!

     We had covered a fair distance though, thanks to the strangely shaped, scape-enhanced sail that was set up over the boat we were in. More of a raft actually. Barely even that. A few logs and planks tied and nailed together so that they could more or less float. That was all we could pilfer from the debris of an abandoned village. Dew had done something to ensure it didn’t fall apart, and that was all I knew. I couldn’t ask for more at this point. However, given the size of the ocean and how far land was (given my limited knowledge of geography), I had a feeling we were going to be on this raft for a long time to come, no matter how fast the winds bore us along. I was willing to wait, as long as we didn’t end up in hostile land. Burma was close, and so were some islands that were rumoured to be secret Chinese military facilities. We had set out in the direction of the Indian coastline, but I wasn’t too sure if we had managed to stay on course. It was hot. Not the blazing heat of the city or the humid heat of a tropical beach. This was the sapping, unrelenting, moist heat that rose off the ocean in waves. We had some water and some food. I was already thinking about how to get more. There was a small shelter rigged up at one end of the raft, where the sail formed a wall and some more scraps of cloth came together to make a tattered roof. I had managed to scoop this roof into a funnel and placed some coconut shells below - if we had any rain it would hopefully replenish our water storage.

     “We are still at least a hundred miles away from land, if not more,” De Vorto grumbled, as he hovered within earshot. I grimaced but didn’t offer any comments. We were nearly through our food rations. I wondered if Dew could fix something that made it possible to grab fish from the ocean, but I wasn’t too sure about that. Dew was doing her best to keep us moving without capsizing, but she needed to conserve her energy, considering she was the only functional wordsmith we had. Given the mood she was in, I wasn’t sure I should ask her either. It was tempting to try and do something. I could feel a near-limitless power sloshing around in the backwoods of my mind. There was something there that almost begged me to release it, let it loose and shape it. De Vorto was keeping a very close watch on me though. He probably knew what it felt like, and he was making sure I didn’t try anything. He had warned me in graphic detail of the consequences of trying to do anything at all with the power.