The Way of the Soul (2 page)

“Is it nearby?”

Plang pointed at Malja with a shaking finger. “She take us.”

“You want Malja to take us there.”

“No.
Her.
Do-kha.”

Fawbry looked up and down Malja. “I think your do-kha is female.”

Malja crossed her arms. “Just get a clear image of the place from that thing. I’ll try to open a portal to get us there.”

“No, no,” Plang said. “Do-kha do it.” Plang lowered its head as it approached Malja. Only this time, Malja thought the groyle’s behavior related to her do-kha, not her. “Please. Take me home.”

It reached out with one finger and brushed Malja’s thigh. Her do-kha tightened on her skin, and Malja could feel energy surging through it. A loud crack filled the air along with a sharp burnt odor. Behind them, a portal opened upon a lush, green swampland.

Plang clapped its hands and jumped around. “Home. Home. Let’s go.” It hugged Malja’s leg, but she knew this had nothing to do with appreciation or thanks. The groyle had to know well that it would be incinerated if it attempted to walk through a portal without being in close proximity to a do-kha. After all, this thing had apparently made do-khas.

“Come on,” Malja said to Fawbry. He knew the routine. Standing behind her, he put his arms around her waist. This way she could be ready if anything waited for them on the other side. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.

They stepped through the portal.

Chapter 2

Reon

Reon was late for lunch.
Again. Her mother would be upset when she finally showed and would have no sympathy for her excuses, but it wasn’t her fault.

She had left her apartment at Gull University with plenty of time. But the foot traffic clogged the walkways, and some rude guy swiped the car she had called, causing her to waste another ten minutes waiting for a new car. Self-driving autocars could not be forced into speeding, so once inside, she had no choice but to wait.

Soft jazz played from the autocar’s inner-speakers — not calming enough to ease Reon’s nerves. She dug through her large, cluttered bag searching for a breath mint. Her mother always complained Reon’s breath lacked the freshness to attract a husband. And that was so important, of course. That was everything. Reon rolled her eyes to the empty autocar.

Tapping her wristband, she called her mother at the restaurant. “Hi, Mom. Somebody took my car, so I had to call another. I’ll be there very shortly.”

Her mother’s stern image appeared on her wrist. “No problem, dear. I don’t feel awkward waiting alone in a crowded restaurant. I’m used to it.” She leaned in closer and wrinkled her brow. “Is your skin pink?”

“No, Mom. The battery on my wristband must be going.”

“Good. Because nobody is going to want to be with a woman who has pink skin. I know you like all those fads, but Gull University isn’t about fads. It’s about education. It’s about finding yourself a quality mate.”

“Yes, Mom. I’ll be there shortly.” Reon tapped off the call. She looked over her pink skin, and with a cleansing breath, changed it to a flesh tone.

As her pigment shifted, she had to admit that she acquired the chameleon implants because her some of her friends had done so as well. She thought it was cool. More importantly, she thought it might be useful, someday, whenever her Lord returned.

She had been seven when he first appeared. He called himself Harskill, but she could only think of him as Lord or Lord Harskill.

Lying in bed, crowded by stuffed animals, she had closed her eyes for no more than five minutes when a bright flash startled her. She bolted upright in bed as the air in her room cracked open, and out stepped a handsome man dressed in black.

Her parents always had been religious — stalwart followers of Dulmul, the one true god. Though there were numerous religions in the world, none commanded as many followers as the Dulmulim. Sunday prayers, Wednesday cleansing, Friday prayers, Holy Days, and Morning Rites — Reon knew them all. So, when a god stepped into her bedroom, she had the sense to drop to her knees and bow her head to the floor.

She had never seen a god before, but at seven years old, she believed what her parents had taught her. Gods were real, proved by the magic in the air with which the scientists of the world could create all of their wonders.

“I praise thee, Dulmul,” she said, her little heart racing.

In his deep, savory voice, the Lord Harskill said, “I am not Dulmul. I am real. Dulmul is nothing but a fiction.”

“But Dulmul is the one, true god.”

“Really? Have you ever seen him?”

“No.”

“But you see me.”

“Yes.”

“Then I ask you, who is more real?”

Reon thought it over with her seven-year-old tongue poking out the side of her mouth. “You are certainly really before me. But not seeing someone doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t there.”

Lord Harskill laughed. “You’re a smart girl. So listen to me now — I am Harskill. And unless your Dulmul shows up and stops me, I am now the only true Lord of this world.”

Reon’s skin reddened at the memory, and she had to concentrate before it returned to a normal flesh tone. The autocar pulled up at the restaurant —
Joyous Garden
— and Reon took one final, cleansing breath before stepping out.

As the restaurant’s hostess guided Reon through the winding maze of tables toward her mother, her stomach grumbled at the intoxicating aroma of expertly prepared food. While she loathed these monthly lunches with her mother, at least she got a free meal — one far more costly than she could afford on her own.

The main dining floor felt more like an arboretum. Cavernous glass ceilings allowed sunlight to trickle through foliage made of live trees desperately attempting to grow out of captivity. Three enormous chandeliers hung to provide light in the evenings. Reon knew the wealthy loved these kinds of places, found them peaceful yet intimidating, but for her, the whole thing seemed forced.

When she approached the table, her mother gazed up and down — simultaneously an appraisal and an inspection. To the hostess, her mother said, “We’ll both have the ator fish with the sauce on the side, and basselberries, no sugar.”

The hostess offered her most practiced smile. “I’ll send your waiter over at once for your order.”

“You can tell the waiter our order. I don’t need to repeat it. Thank you.” As the hostess left, Reon’s mother muttered, “Service in these places keeps getting worse and worse. It’s because they hire all their help from the West. Bunch of lazy, godless idiots.”

Great,
Reon thought.
She’s miffed.

“So, Reon dear, how are your studies?”

“Fine.” Reon launched into a description of the various courses she took and her recent high marks — applied mathematics, 10th century literature, and physics of magic. She barely heard herself speak and doubted her mother listened much. The entire conversation, beginning to end, every lunch, had become a prepared litany. The same questions, the same answers. The entire reason for the lunch seemed more as a way for her mother to check off
Spent Time With Daughter
rather than actually spend time with her daughter.

Reon could not pinpoint the exact moment when they had stopped listening to each other, but she knew exactly when that process had begun — the morning after Lord Harskill had first appeared. Her parents had been sitting at breakfast. Little, seven-year-old Reon hurried to the table, excited because she had met a god.

Her parents dismissed it as a dream, one that bordered on sacrilege, and suggested she go to church after school and pray for forgiveness. She insisted that it truly had happened which only caused her mother to dig in deeper. They skipped school that day and instead spent five hours kneeling on the uncomfortable prayer blocks at church, begging for forgiveness and praying that Reon had not been possessed by some demon.

It was during those five hours that Reon decided she would listen to all that the Lord Harskill had said. He wanted her to grow strong. He asked her to study hard, to become bright, and to become a skilled warrior. Because some day, Lord Harskill had promised, he would return and would require her to help save the world.

Fifteen years had passed, and though he did return once, it was not time for her to serve then — not as a warrior. She buried that wonderful memory of his second visit — it was not something she wanted to think about while her mother prattled on across the table.

“Well,” her mother said, “promise me, at the least, that you won’t be late to the dinner you’ve been invited to.”

“What dinner?”

“Young Brandon Corhickle requested your attendance to a private dinner. I, of course, accepted on your behalf.”

“Are you seriously setting me up on a blind date?”

“It’s not a blind date. You’ve known Brandon for years.”

“When we were kids. Besides, I've no interest in him.”

“You have no interest in any man. I’m starting to think you might not like men at all.”

Reon placed her hands under the table and rolled her fingers up into tight fists. “I don’t have any interest in the kind of men you want me to date.”

“Why? Because Brandon doesn’t swing a sword around and punch pads all day like a simple-minded beast?”

“There’s nothing simple about martial arts. And it’s part of my ...” Reon wanted to say that it was part of her calling, that the one true Lord Harskill required her to be in peak physical condition, well-trained and ready to fight. But she had learned after that endurance prayer session at seven never to mention Lord Harskill again.

Luckily, Reon’s mother never listened much. “Brandon may not be muscular or have the physical prowess you seek, but he’s a good man and he goes to our church.”

There it was. Of all the moneyed, weak-minded fools she could choose, she picked one associated with the church. It wasn’t the first time Reon’s mother had attempted to fix her up with a man that would somehow magically bring her back into the folds of the Dulmulim and it probably wouldn’t be the last time. But it was a wasted effort.

She had no need for Brandon Corhickle. She had met the Lord Harskill. It had not been a vision or a hallucination or any false experience caused by a fault in the brain. He had stood before her. In the flesh. And she had faith that all of her efforts — her education, her martial arts training, the fact that she prayed to him every night — would not go unheard.

“Pay attention to me.” Her mother pointed a long-nailed finger. Reon had not noticed when it happened, but her mother’s face had tightened — a bitter, serious look. “You are twenty-two years old and have done nothing. By the time I was your age, I had been married and thrown my first big gala. Successfully. I had joined the church and already had begun to climb the social ladder to the exalted position I now hold, heading the entire women’s group for our faith. You cannot throw your life away like this. You cannot waste the family name and the family money. You are in Gull University now. That’s a name that you have to live up to. You should be finding a husband. You should be gaining a position of notoriety instead of kicking bags and dancing around with swords.”

Reon had heard this all before. Each time, however, felt like a drop of burning tar on her skin. She had endured the pain enumerable times. She saw herself as a tar-collecting vat which could hold no more.

Before she could stop herself, she banged the table. “Maybe I don’t want all of that. Maybe I’m not interested in all of your money or your popularity, and I’m certainly not interested in Dulmul.”

Her mother checked around the room, assessing the possible embarrassment should one of her friends or enemies witness this scene. “What are you going to do? Join the golgol cult, I suppose? That’s what all the rich brats do now. It’s the latest fad, and I know how you like to follow the fads.”

“No, Mom. I’m not a cultist and I certainly don’t believe in any of the other religions. They’re all false. You know very well the real god. I’ve met him. The Lord Harskill.”

Reon had never seen her mother so angry. Barely moving her mouth, she said, “Don’t you ever speak that name again. Do you understand me? Never. I thought we were done with that when you were a child.”

“You were done with it. Not me.”

“He’s not real.”

“I
met
him.”

“Then he’s a demon trying to snatch your soul from the benevolence of Dulmul.”

As the waiter delivered the fish, Reon stood. “Thanks for such a wonderfully supportive mother/daughter moment. And you can tell Brandon that if he wanted to date me, he should’ve asked me directly and not gone through my mother.”

Back in the autocar, Reon punched the seat three times. The autocar chirped up, “This vehicle is property of Tro-new Services. Vandalizing this vehicle is against the law and will result in substantial fines and penalties. Please desist.”

Reon knelt on the autocar’s floor and lowered her head. She closed her eyes and thought of the Lord Harskill. It had been a difficult fifteen years. Growing up, playing with friends, learning about her world, trying to enjoy life — all of it proved taxing when she knew the Lord waited for her to be ready for some undisclosed moment in time when she would be called upon to fulfill her task. To help save the world. Everything in her life not connected with preparing for that moment seemed frivolous.