Gathering Water (16 page)

“Um, yes, she did.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“How unfortunate.” But his face betrayed his indifferent words. For just a moment he looked stricken by her death, then his features rearranged themselves back into the cool uncaring mask the rest of his companions had, making me question what I had seen.

“Well, I’m sure that the young ones would like to get changed. Alexander, would you mind seeing them to a room that they can use for now? Connor, let me show you back to your rooms. There’s a snack awaiting you, if you think you can keep it down,” Derek said, his voice belaying a smile while mentioning some inside joke that neither I, nor Cash understood.

“I will never live that down, will I?” Connor laughed a little before turning to us. “Cash, Della, you two go on. I’ll see you in a few minutes. Take this time to mentally prepare yourself and to Gather as much as you can. There’s plenty of every element here. Remember to take it slow, Della. We don’t want to accidentally hurt someone if you Gather too fast.”

We said our good byes to Connor; then the two of us nervously followed Alexander to where we could change and get ready.

“What was Derek talking about with my dad? About a snack?” Cash asked as we walked along.

“We used to provide food for the initiates before the testing began. Dux Neale, after having his fill, had the misfortune of losing his stomach in front of the council. I believe that Lord Derek enjoys bringing it up in jest.” Alexander rather stiffly told us.

“Ha, remind me to make fun of Dad for that later.” I nodded my head in affirmation, but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t even in front of the council yet and I felt like
I
could vomit, I was so nervous.

“Alexander, may I ask a question?”

“Of course. I will do my best to answer,” he responded, speaking in a slightly warmer tone than he had with Cash.

“My uncle referred to this place as a base. What did he mean by that? Is this where you live?” I’d meant to ask earlier, and realized as soon as I uttered the question that I could have waited until I was alone with Cash, since he surely knew the answer as well.

“No, this is not where my people live. Dux Neale refers to this place as a base because that is what it is, of sorts. It’s an outpost so that we may have troops in this area at all times. Eurybis, our city, is southeast of here. About 600 miles, I believe.”

“What is that you keep calling him. Dux? What does that mean?”

“I’m surprised that your people have told you so little. Dux is the title of the human leader. Duxa if she is female,” the stiff man told me, making Cash roll his eyes at my ignorance.

The rest of the walk passed by in silence, Alexander only speaking when we passed a building that he thought we should know about. I was okay with that, though, since our surroundings were incredible. The statues that I had noticed before were really intricately carved stone pillars that seemed to have been carved out of the cave itself since I couldn’t see any seams. Most of them were of trees with so much detail they almost looked real.

After a few minutes we got to an area that had a few real trees. I could feel the water that pooled there, and was delighted to see an outdoor bath, of sorts. This was, apparently, our destination, since Alexander pointed us to an area close to the pool where a change of clothes was waiting for us, folded neatly on the moss. Eager to wash the salt water off, we both quickly got into the baths, still in our swimsuits, since there was no wall or anything to ensure our privacy. Something we found problematic after we were finished with our quick rinse off because there was no good place to change without exposing ourselves to each other and Alexander. Well, not without getting creative, at least.

I remembered what Luke had been telling us the day before, so after I grabbed the smaller set of clothes and Gathered to dry myself, I created a Shield out of Earth and focused until it was opaque.

“You’re a genius, Della,” Cash said, as I slipped on a powder blue linen outfit similar to what the Elfennol were wearing. I had to keep my swimsuit on underneath since they didn’t provide any sort of undergarments. It reminded me of the type of suit that you wear for karate except there were buttons along the front instead of a belt, and I wondered if that was a trend for these people or if there was another reason to wear them.

Cash, I saw when I cleared my opaque Shield, was in a light grey suit that matched his eyes. When we were finished dressing, Alexander led us away from the little bathing grotto and to a football field-sized clearing. Almost like a small-scale coliseum, the space was shaped like a horseshoe with three rows of stadium seats carved out of stone, lining the three sides. The seats were filled with at least two hundred people, all looking at us as Alexander led us to the center of the field. At the other end was a wooden, moon-shaped table filled with even more people. I could see Connor, Toby, Derek, and two others, who I assumed were the remaining Council members.

February 25
th
, 1969

Dear Journal,

L came by today to try and make amends with Anise. He had a free weekend from training. My daughter went down to meet him, but gave him the worst tongue-lashing I’d ever seen. Coincidentally T was on his way over at the time, and somehow with all the hysterics, the two boys got themselves into a fight. I’ve called Mark to collect them, but in the meantime I have two young men sitting in my kitchen with tonight’s steaks over their blackened eyes. Even as I write this I can see them glaring daggers at each other. I’m thankful that they are mostly worthless at Bending, since I’m sure they would be trying to destroy each other this very minute if they could.

I turned to ask Alexander what we were supposed to do next, but he was nowhere in sight. I looked over at Cash to see what he thought and he just shrugged one shoulder and raised an eyebrow at me, then started walking towards the table. With nothing else to do, I followed him, lengthening my strides so that we would reach the table at the same time. We stopped about two feet away from the group, and after a few disconcerting moments of silence, the woman at the table (who must have been Etta since she was the only woman) looked over to Toby and spoke.

“Is this the child?” she asked while looking directly at me.

“This is my grandson, Cash, and my granddaughter, Della, here for their testing,” Toby told her, making my hackles rise at his familial acknowledgement.

“Of course. Shall we begin?” Etta kept her eyes on me.

“Let’s,” Derek agreed.

There was literally a crowd of people watching us, and having their complete attention made my palms sweat and my stomach churn. No wonder Uncle Connor had puked his guts up when he was going through this.

No sooner had Derek closed his mouth before Cash and I were blown backwards by a fierce attack of energy. I threw up a Shield around us both, started Tempering fire, and saw that Cash was doing the same as he helped me back up since the energy had knocked me to my butt. We sidled back-to-back, unsure if this was part of the testing or a surprise attack. At the table, now about ten feet away, Uncle Connor stood up and glared down at the Council members.

“This isn’t the way the Testing is normally done!” he exclaimed.

“We choose how the initiates are tested!” Etta returned while slamming her hand onto the table and standing up to look my uncle in the eye. When he gave her the barest nod of his head, she turned her attention to us.

“You will defend yourselves, by any means necessary. We need strong allies, and if you cannot even guard yourselves, how can we expect you to guard our own flanks in battle? The testing will be finished when neither of you can continue, and we will judge whether this alliance will continue based on that.” She sounded like a grade-A bi-atch.

As she spoke, the pressure on our Shields continued to increase, forcing us farther and farther away from the table until we were in the center of the field once more. Suddenly the energy lessened, and I heard Cash take a breath in relief. I gave him a worried glance. Shielding wasn’t his best ability, and he gave me a wry smile.

Crack!

A giant boulder crushed itself against my Shield, breaking into a million pieces. I saw, to my horror, that there were dozens more aimed our way. The next one lobbed itself at Cash, but he was able to turn it away before it got close to his Shield. I tried to do the same to the next one, but couldn’t concentrate enough to grab hold of something moving so quickly, and flinched as it cracked into my Shield, draining a good amount of energy in the process. Then another boulder that I hadn’t even seen exploded on my left. The sound was so irritating, and I just couldn’t get a grip on the giant rocks, so I just pumped a good store of my energy into my Shield and pushed it out so far enough to surround me and Cash in a twenty foot dome. Cash looked over at me with sweat on his brow, looking relieved.

“Thanks. I’m not sure my Shield could have handled more than one of those, and they were starting to come at me too fast to Bend them all. How long can you keep this Shield up?”

“I don’t know, a while I guess. There’s plenty to Gather around here, so unless they have something else planned…” I trailed off, certain that it couldn’t possibly be so easy.

It wasn’t.

The ground cracked open in between the two of us, and water was slowly filling up the area around us. Apparently I had a flaw in my Shield, since I’d never thought to expect an attack from below I never considered Shielding from it. I also had no idea how to let the water
out
of my Shield without also letting the boulders
in
. The water was filling quickly, turning my Shield into a fish bowl and causing me and Cash to get a little panicky.

“Gather Della!” My genius, wonderful, awesome cousin said and I quickly followed his advice, Gathering as much and as quickly as I could. I quickly became the center of a whirlpool until I filled my Well to the brim, but it was only a temporary solution since the water was still pouring in. Belatedly, I realized I needed to cover the ground with my Shield to prevent more water from coming up.

While I was doing this, Cash was busy trying to Bend the bigger boulders away from hitting my Shield. It was starting to weaken in places while I was distracted with the whole water thing, and would have had gaping holes if Cash hadn’t stepped in. While I sent a surge of energy to repair the Shield, the ground started shaking, and I reached out and grabbed Cash by the arm to keep from falling.

“What the…” he started, before we were both knocked to our knees by the movement. The entire Shield had just been pushed about twenty feet in the air by the water. Since it could no longer breach the Shield, the pressure quickly built up until we were standing on a geyser. We soon crashed back down to the ground, everything in my Shield being shaken up like a miniature terranium.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I muttered as I brushed the dirt from my hands and tried to prepare myself for the next trick, flinching as yet another boulder cracked my Shield.

“Della! Shit, Della, is that what I think it is?” I looked over at what Cash was referring to, and felt the blood leach from my face.

“Della, please tell me that your Shield will hold against that.” He was pointing to an oozing river of lava that was crawling its way towards us.

“Oh yeah, because I’ve had so many opportunities to practice with freaking lava before,” I snapped.

“Maybe if we cool it with some water,” Cash said, showing an intelligent streak I didn’t know he was capable of.

“Brilliant.” We both started pulling the water from the geyser and covering the lava with it. It had reached my Shield and was starting to crawl its way upwards, the cool water having no effect other than creating so much steam it was impossible to see. I focused on making the Shield stronger where the lava was, hardly noticing that the boulders and rocks had increased their frequency and force. And if that weren’t enough, I saw that a few non-Council Elfennol were coming towards us, slashing at my weakening Shield with their massive energy.

“Ow. Dammit, Cash I need to decrease the size of this Shield, it’s starting to break. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it. Get your ass over here and for god’s-sake do something about these stupid rocks!” I yelled, rubbing my left arm after a fist-size rock slammed into it, leaving it numb and unusable.

“What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?” He made his way in my direction while Bending wildly and ducking the flying rocks that he missed.

I was down on my knees at this point, trying desperately to keep the Shield up and protecting us, and even Gathering Fire and Earth from the lava wasn’t enough to repair the damage it was being dealt. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the Elfennol were trying to kill us, not test us.

My Shield was deteriorating quickly. I just wasn’t strong enough to hold out against a handful of Elfennol, and even with the help from the lava I was running low on elements to gather from. I tried to leave air alone, since I knew that Cash would need it to protect us from the rocks that were now raining steadily down on us.

The Elfennol were now just ten feet away from us on all sides, holding their hands out and pushing against my rapidly weakening Shield. I looked up at Cash, who was now standing next to me, and saw that he was ash white and covered in sweat from the exertion of Bending so much.

“This is unreal, Della!” he said, stumbling over the words. Before I could respond, he fell down to one knee beside me, too exhausted to stand, and time slowed as I watched a rock the size of a golf ball hit him in the back of the head, knocking him forward onto his face.

“No, Cash! Please be okay. Please be okay.” I tried to get to where his head lay, hot tears pouring down my cheeks. But the rocks kept coming, and without Cash there to help, I was getting hit over and over, my Shield all but nonexistent, and the Elfennol that were attacking me were now close enough to touch. I covered my head with my hands, elbows digging into the dirt, and looked over to the table where the Council, Toby, and Uncle Connor were waiting. My eyes immediately found Etta’s, and the coldness I saw there pissed me all the way off.

“Enough!” I yelled, slamming my hands down before forcing myself to stand, ignoring the pain of the rocks that were still coming my way. I was furious. My best friend, and cousin, was lying unconscious in front of me and I couldn’t even check to see if he was alive. The stupid Elfennol just stood there, using their energy to press against me. I’d have been blown back by it, but since they were on all sides the pressure was actually holding me in place. My mind had become a focused, seething machine. I was sick of it-they could take their test and shove it up their butts.

“ENOUGH!” I yelled again, my voice so loud it pierced even my ears.

The rocks were still moving in the air, but now they were moving around me, protecting me. The Elfennol had not only stopped their advance, but had backed away from me. My hair blew into my face, sticking to the corners of my mouth before being whipped away again, and I noticed in shock that the lava that had been threatening my Shield minutes before had flowed to a small stream near me, with drops flowing up and into my fingertips, just as the water did the first time I Gathered in the shower.

I held my hands in front of my face, certain that I would see melting flesh but I didn’t. I barely even felt the heat. I had felt like a god when I was facing the Clade, and I felt like one now, too. At least I did until I caught the look of fear on the faces of the Elfennol who had been attacking, then on faces of those in the crowd.

When I looked over to the table and saw the fear on my uncle’s face, the wind was taken from my sails, and the last thing I heard was the clutter of rocks hitting the ground and Cash asking, “What happened?” before the world went black.