Meek

Chapter 40: The Counterweight

The world smeared around Eli:

Stinking slum alleys.

The stars wheeling above.

A glowing weight in his chest.

The cart rumbling, shaking him.

The girl--Laranya--bantering with a soldier at a checkpoint, like she didn't have a care in the world. Then rolling past, unhurried, while a messenger talked about Lady Pym.

The scent of night-blooming flowers.

Laranya picked debris from his body with her strong, gentle fingers. Her forehead furrowed with concern. She murmured to him, nonsensical words of comfort. She touched him everywhere, whimpering occasionally at what she saw, stopping once to weep.

Okay, so he'd been wrong about her. He should've trusted her. What a jackass. What an absolute prickle. He still didn't understand why, but he had to admit that she wouldn't betray him, she wouldn't hurt him. Quite the opposite. She'd saved his life again, dragging him away from the manor. Away from Rockbridge.

Ha. Now she really owed him.

The mask of scar tissue covering his face wouldn't let him smile. His sparks flickered and faded, in and out of focus, and couldn't drift more than a few feet from him at the moment, but he watched Laranya curled into a blanket beneath the cart with one spark while the other stood guard in the night.

Unsteadily, intermittently, but still watchful.

And if he spotted a threat, what could he do? Nothing. He couldn't warn her, he couldn't fight. Halo, he couldn't move. Yet he also couldn't let her sleep unguarded.

At least, that's what he planned. That's what he resolved, but the Dreamers composed lullabies from the plans of humans. So he kept drifting off, his mind fluttering like a moth trapped in a jar.

Why wasn't he healing faster? Trolls weren't particularly vulnerable to fire, not from anything he'd read. And surely Mist-Beneath would've mentioned a weakness as important as that. Maybe he'd just taken too much damage over too many days, with Chivat Lo's poison as well as everything else. Or maybe he'd simply collapsed after he'd accomplished the goal that had driven him forward. Maybe once marquis was dead, all that exhaustion had just fallen on him like a tree.

On the other hand, he dimly remembered an uncomfortable tightness, as if his burns were resisting his healing. At least at first, when his skin had been exposed to the air, the charred flesh hadn't wanted to heal. But now, inside this ... this horrible cocoon, a tingling spread across him. Starting at the new weight in his chest and spreading outward.

A molten weight, yet not hot. Not even uncomfortable.

More like a glowstone, from which the pins-and-needles sensation of healing flowed.

As he focused on the glow, he realized he could break free of his ... his plantain peel, if necessary. Yet the idea alarmed him. He felt fragile, like he needed to stay protected for a while longer. So he remained limp and still, bringing the sparks to hover nearby.

The cart started swaying again. Gauzy white clouds feathered the morning sky. The sound of Laranya chatting with the donkey soothed Eli. The pins-and-needles sensation shifted into numbness. The light of the glowstone in his chest shone into his flesh and organs. He felt himself healing on the inside, his bones shifting into place, his muscles knitting together.

Yet on the outside, he was as stiff as a crayfish shell.

Then Laranya saw the forest and she laughed like a child. Unashamed, with joy and anticipation and relief.

When she started chatting to the donkey again, he tapped her with a spark. She caught on almost immediately, and told him how to say 'yes' and 'no.'

After the cart rolled into the forest path, she dropped the reins and lifted her arms to brush her fingers through the low-hanging branches.

"I cried the first time I left the Glade," she told him, smiling at the memory. "Of course, I was just a kid ..."

He tapped her forehead a few times, meaning You're still just a kid.

"Because I'd never seen so far before. I'd never seen anything so barren. So stark. I'd felt exposed. If you're born and raised within the circle of your Mother's arms, in her shade and limbs, leaving that embrace is frightening."

Yes, he said.

"But something thrilled me, too, about the endless expanse. About being naked to the sky. I stood there and trembled, you know?"

Yes, he said.

"Most dryn don't test themselves against the grasslands, but I did. So brave. That's how I thought of myself. What a courageous child." She smiled at the sunlight dappling through the canopy. "Such a fool."

Yes, he said.

"Ha! You hush. I wanted to leave the Glade, I wanted to explore, to see the world. But when I finally left, I left with him. I left ..." She didn't speak for a time, then she said: "I just wanted to go home."

A breeze shook the forest leaves, making them whisper.

"For so long, that's all I wanted," she continued. "To go home. I dreamed about the Glade every night. About my family."

Squirrels chittered at a troupe of pine-monkeys who were peeling bark from a fallen log to reach the grubs beneath.

"But I can't go home, Eli. Not yet. Not until ..."

The creak of the cart wheels surprised a redfawn and her doe, who bounded across the path ahead, then vanished.

Laranya took a breath, and changed the subject. "Well, first thing, let's not get caught. There's no reason for them to search the forest, but if a couple of woodcutters spot me and the cart, and that gets connected to the woman with the drunk husband ..."

Yes, he told her, and started to shiver inside his cocoon.

She kept talking, and he enjoyed the music of her voice even as he lost track of her words. The weight inside him, the glowstone light, demanded his attention. It reached through him, and past him, connecting to the sparks.

Maybe it was his connection to the sparks.

Or maybe it was another spark, the biggest spark, anchored inside his chest. Except not a spark so much as an ember, a central core from which the other sparks emerged.

Yes. That felt right. He'd discovered the core of his body, the core of his self.

He relaxed into the knowledge, accepting the presence and power of the core. It felt as much like darkness as light, as much like coolness as warmth: a web of contradictions that spread from his heart.

The core filled every inch of Eli, yet remained hollow. It dense and hard, yet lighter than a feather. It was the eye of a storm or--

Or the weight of a mountain.

That's what he was feeling. That explained the familiarity. The weight of mountain flowed through him, through his core, into the sparks, and gave them substance. Not much, not yet, but he'd opened the channel now, he'd unlocked the door. Touching his inner spark, his core, strengthened his link to the sparks.

And heightened his ability to modify them.

He solidified one spark, then the other. He pressed them together, and felt the pressure of himself against himself, like pushing his palms together. Then he shoved them down against the cart platform to either side of his motionless body. He felt the wood planks, worn smooth from use. He pressed harder, leveraging the weight of his core, pushing density though his connection, turning the sparks as solid as possible.

He was still too weak to even dent the wood of the cart, which he could've done with a thumbnail. Still, he gave one last push and--

Oh! He felt his body shift upward. Not even a hair's breadth. Almost imperceptibly. Still, trapped motionless inside the cocoon, he noticed the faintest lightening of his body. As if the sparks were attached to him like arms, and he'd pushed against the floor to stand. As if the core in his chest was a counterweight, physically linked to the sparks despite the space between them.

He pushed again, and felt the same thing. When he pressed the sparks downward against a firm surface, that moved him upward.

He grunted in satisfaction. He'd survived too long by luck and desperation, by relying on the strange magic of a Dreamer-touched troll-cave. No more.

First he'd practice until his sparks struck with the force of sling bullets. Then he'd practice they lifted him like another pair of arms, carried him like another pair of legs.

And after that? Well, he'd see what Laranya thought about his purpose, his goal. He trusted her, but that only meant he'd listen, not that he'd obey. He still felt a simmering anger, deep his bones. A predatory keenness. He didn't know how far this path would take him, but he aimed to find out.