Chapter Fourteen
I was taking Cree’s advice and reading news circulars. I used to read them regularly, but I had fallen out of the habit while on Flatwell. Which was unfortunate, because there were all sorts of interesting things in news circulars. Like a long editorial ranting about the transfer of so many Triple S Pairs with no replacements, accusing the Triple S council of negligence in its duty to an important city like High Scape. I wondered whether it would be appropriate to tell the writer that High Scape hadn’t been threatened with a single event for weeks, if not longer. For all I knew, such information would cause that same writer to complain that the remaining Pairs were a waste of resources.
“Shield Mallorough.”
The sudden voice made me jerk in my chair, and I glared at Ben, who was standing in the doorway of the parlor.
He didn’t appear to notice. “You’re up early.”
“I slept poorly.” Lately, I was always sleeping poorly. It was getting annoying. “Have you been away? I feel like I haven’t seen you for a few days.”
“Is that why you’ve taken your wrap off your hand?” he chided, carefully taking my right hand in his.
The burns were still discolored and tacky. I’d had no idea burns took so long to heal. “That seemed safer than using something harmful out of ignorance.”
“It is safer to leave the wrap on. The plaster remains viable for several days. I’ll use a stronger plaster today. Hopefully that will address any damage you might have done.”
Hey, he was the one who left without telling me how to take care of my hand.
“You’re not having coffee?” Ben asked.
“I didn’t feel like making any when I got up.” Which was bizarre, but so was getting up early.
“I’ll put some on for you.”
“Oh, no. That’s not necessary. But thank you.”
He nodded and left the parlor. I continued to read and came across the information that the ashes of the mayor for a day had been stolen. It was ridiculous how many ashes were going missing. People were getting obsessed.
As Ben rewrapped my hand, Taro came in for some breakfast, and then we headed out to the Stall for our watch. Almost as soon as we were on the streets, we saw the new notices pasted on flat surfaces all over the place. The paste was so fresh and smelled so strong I couldn’t stand to get close enough to read the notice. “What are they about?” I asked Taro.
“New punishments for people pretending to engage in the practice of casting spells,” he said.
“Really?” I didn’t even know what the old punishments were. “What are they?”
“Lashes,” he said with distaste.
“Excuse me?”
“A public whipping. A single lash for each book of spells owned.” He shot me a look. “Five for performing any alleged spell or ritual. An additional lash if it’s a love spell. An additional ten if the spell harms someone else’s property. Twenty lashes for each instance of collecting, possessing, selling or consuming human ashes.”
I didn’t know why the idea of digging up ashes for the purposes of selling them disgusted me more than digging them up for personal use. It just did. Not as much, though, as the idea that someone would get tortured with twenty lashes just for doing it. After all, ashes were merely the remains of dead people. Dead people weren’t capable of caring. Yes, the practice was disgusting and stupid, but so was torture, and torture was perpetrated against live people.
“I didn’t know there were standard punishments for crimes.” I’d always thought it was up to each individual judge. “Who decided these?”
“His Imperial Majesty Emperor Gifford.”
“Can he do that?” He wasn’t an emperor yet.
Taro shrugged. “Who’s going to tell him he can’t? You might think about getting rid of those books.”
I stared at him. “What did you say?”
He tapped the notice with the tip of his finger. “A lash for each book. How many books would you say you have? About twenty-five?”
“No one is going to tell me what I can and cannot read.”
“Would you be saying that if you weren’t fairly confident that as a Shield you are excluded from the force of this decree?”
“Yes.” But I would also be getting rid of the books, coward that I was. I wasn’t going to be tortured for reading about something I wasn’t all that interested in.
Taro seemed to stiffen, and I felt his inner shields shift. “We’re not on duty yet, Taro,” I said sharply.
“No one’s doing anything. It’s not here.” The words were rushed out of his mouth, and then his shields were down. I had to put up mine and there was no point in talking any further because he was committed and there was nothing more to be done but follow along.
But damn it, I was tired. Besides, the natural events had to be allowed to happen somewhere. If nothing was allowed to happen anywhere, well, the world would just explode, wouldn’t it?
Taro was just showing off, damn him.
Again, it was an event from the place of crashing waves and jagged cliffs. What was it about this place that Taro kept feeling the events taking place there? He wasn’t feeling events from anywhere else.
Then something strange happened. An unpleasant sliding sensation that hit me right in the stomach. I felt myself stumble. “Taro.”
Water heaving and swirling brought a stinging to my nostrils and dizzying tension to the bridge of my nose.
And Taro was channeling too much, all at once. It frightened me. The racing of his heart was mixing in with the cacophony exploding in my ears. “Taro, slow down.”
I was vaguely aware of falling against a wall. A stench assaulted my nose, which didn’t help with the nausea.
And the forces rushed through Taro, much like the gushing water pressing against the backs of my eyes.
I felt a rippling in my Shields. Were they slipping?
My gods. That couldn’t happen. That didn’t happen. “Taro!”
Couldn’t he hear me? The panic in my voice was obvious to anyone who cared to listen, I was sure. Why wouldn’t he answer me?
But maybe he couldn’t hear. He was letting too much rush through him, and I had no idea how aware he might be of what was going on around him. Or of me. Maybe when his blood was rushing about that hard, he couldn’t really hear anything.
Yet I would have thought he would notice that there was something happening to my Shields.
The rippling became more intense. “Taro!” I shrieked. “Slow down!”
He couldn’t stop once he’d started. I knew that. We were in trouble.
But the forces lessened in their volume. By slowing the channeling of the forces, Taro lessened the demands on his blood and his organs. That released some of the pressure from my Shields. Unfortunately, the more the forces lessened, the more my Shields seemed to weaken. That made no sense.
I couldn’t let my Shields fall. It would kill Taro. It would kill me. But the sliding turned into spinning, and there were moments when I wasn’t sure whether I was standing up or falling or lying down. I curled my arms around my stomach, because letting them hang loose made them whip around.
I couldn’t believe my Shields were failing. They never failed. I’d been in far more trying situations without a doubt that my Shields would hold. What the hell was going on?
The forces smoothed out; the flow lessened and lessened again. Still, I had to push hard, my arms tight against my stomach, my knees hard against my forehead. The images faded from my mind, the screaming birds were silenced, and all I could feel was the tension in my muscles as I fought to keep my Shields up.
I managed to say out loud, “We need another Shield here!”
“No, we don’t!” Taro snapped. “We’re all right!”
“We’re not.”
“It’s almost over. You can hold on.”
“I can’t. We need another Shield.”
“No one’s here. And another Shield can’t Shield me. Hang on. We’re almost done.”
But he lied, and the channeling went on and on and on. The pain in my nose tightened and spread over my forehead and into my temples. I ground my fingernails into my arms and just held on.
It took too long. It should never take so long. Our bodies weren’t made for doing this for such an extended period. Why was Taro doing this?
The forces lessened a little more, and in time, a little more, and then, finally, they disappeared. Taro’s own protections drew up around his mind, and I let my Shields fall. Finally. Thank gods.
Taro knelt beside me, his face unusually serious. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t keep my Shields up.” And that was so hard to admit—that I’d almost failed my Source.
“You did keep them up,” he reminded me.
“Only because you slowed down,” I said. He didn’t respond to that. “This is too dangerous. I needed you to slow down because I couldn’t keep my Shields up. That’s a serious problem.” I had never, ever thought I would be in danger of letting my Shields drop. There were Shields who had failed in that way. It almost always meant the death of the Pair. Once a Source began channeling, it was supposed to be impossible for him or her to stop, even when the Shield’s protections failed. The forces would kill the Source, and the Source’s death would kill the Shield.
That was why Taro and I had to be brutally honest about what was happening.
“So what are you saying?” Taro asked. “That you can’t Shield? Do you want us taken off the roster?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. Nothing so drastic was needed. “You’re channeling events you’re not supposed to channel. Stop doing that.”
“I’m not going to stop doing that,” he snapped back. “I’m supposed to channel these events.”
“The only events you’re supposed to channel are those that are occurring within High Scape.”
“I know, I know, but something feels familiar about these events. I feel I should channel them. That something terrible will happen if I don’t.”
Now, that was alarming. “Familiar how?” I demanded. “Like when Creol was sending events to High Scape?” Channeling those events had been painful, and I had gotten images while Shielding. But there couldn’t possibly be another bitter, crazy Source out there.
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then how is it familiar?” I persisted.
“I don’t know! There’s just something about it that I’ve felt before.”
I resisted the urge to ask, again, what he meant. There was no point in going around and around about it. “All right, fine. But these events aren’t threatening High Scape, right?”
“Correct.”
“So I need you to stop channeling them.”
“There might be people there,” he protested.
“We don’t know that there are, and I could barely hold out this time.”
“It’s my fault, Lee,” Taro said in a soothing, yet annoying, tone. “I channeled when you weren’t expecting it, in a manner you’ve asked me in the past not to channel. There’s no need to panic.”
“I am not panicking,” I said through my teeth. “I am being responsible.”
“Aren’t you always,” he mocked. He kissed my forehead. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”
Why wouldn’t he listen to me? He was risking our lives to channel events that, for all we knew, were taking place out in the middle of nowhere. Why was he being so stubborn about this?
Because he was always stubborn, especially when it came to the use of his abilities. But it wasn’t his abilities at issue. He was apparently having no difficulty channeling. I was the one having problems. He needed to listen to me when it came to how my Shielding was functioning.
How was I going to convince him of that?