“He’s well out of the region, my lord,” I’m forced to admit. The Talent has well and truly escaped us about an hour ago, but I held my tongue. These men are not accustomed to failure.
“You are certain you cannot hear him, kid?” Randal asks, folding his muscular arms over his broad chest.
Suppressing a sigh, I relax my mind, opening its arms ten kilometres in radius, hoping to hear a heartbeat that thumps like a drum with the speed to match a hummingbird’s. I hear the sounds of the exhaust puffing from cars, busses and motorbikes. I hear the flapping of wings and the pitter-patter of elk. I hear the crashing of waves a few miles away from the meadow high in the mountains, the chatter of people walking along the footpath, the crying of a newborn, the sniff of a foreign nose and switch of a light. But not the rushed sprinting of a fifteen-year-old runaway.
“No, he’s not within my reach, my liege.” The smack to the back of the head doesn’t even make me flinch; too powerful to be in good humour, though with his strength, you can never be sure. A smack as a result of failure is too familiar.
“Such a waste,” is all Claudios says, exhaling a sad sigh. “It matters not, though. He is merely a child. We need not haste for what awaits us.”
“Does that mean we can go home now?” Cenna asks, her quiet voice having to strain itself over the rushing wind to be heard. We will never be home, sister.
Randal laughs menacingly, and for a terrified second, I half anticipate he would slap Cenna, but he starts walking towards Henry when Claudios answers “Sweetling, we won’t be home for a while, so you might have to endure a little further.”
“The child slows our pursuit. She should be disposed of, sire,” Henry suggests tiredly, yearning for the small shack by the coast as much as Cenna does. She looks up at me with her small brows frowning in confusion, wondering what is meant by ‘disposed’ I would assume. I only hold her behind my legs, ready to bolt if it leads to that. But I only ponder on the possibility for a second – the two have had this conversation many times before, even in the presence of the subject.
“And risk missing out on such a miracle?” the Pyromancer mutters to the wind, smiling Cenna like a creature does to its prey before it pounces for the kill. “I think not, brother. She will prove useful to us one day. To rid her of us will be such a waste.”
“We’ve tested her, prodded her energy, and all attempts were a fail –”
“Don’t say the word –” Randal begins.
“The results proved negative, true,” Claudios says, “but we’ve approached the situation in the wrong manner. As a matter of fact, I believe I have a . . . let’s call it a hunch – that I hold the key to her transformation.”
Both the other two Talents shift their respectfully averted eyes to the Head, curiosity sprouting from all aspects of their expressions. This is different to the daily quarrels of what to do with my little sister. Whatever they try, however, I won’t allow them to succeed. I promised it to Cenna while she was fast asleep, that these men will not hurt her further.
“What are you suggesting?” Henry prods eagerly, then hurriedly adds, “sire.”
“She is immune to our stimulus,” the Head says, smiling his thin, reptilian smile, “but that’s because she never experience any emotion with such strength in order to transform her.” He pauses to examine his audience’s reaction, and then continues. “Randal, remind us all how you came to be.”
The burly man answers enthusiastically. “I was on such a high when they caught me, I didn’t even care if I ended up sent to a cell for life – the man was dead.”
“Indeed,” inputs Claudios, “and the euphoria you experienced forced the trigger to your ability to engage. Henry, how about you?”
The Telepho appears reluctant, but relents very briefly in a quiet tone. “When my second wife left me, I was full of hate.”
“Yes, and the same applies for you.” Claudios turns his leering grey eyes to mine, his disturbing smile sending shivers down my spine. “And this young man,” he sighs. He leans down so that his eyes are level with mine. “We learn a great deal from this one. How is it you transformed, lad?”
My heart quenches. This monster only wants me to spill my emotions and give him an excuse to hurt me, and maybe Cenna if she tries to defend me. If he could get my sister to fret and fight for me, then that could trigger this … switch – he calls it – that turns us.
So I assume a steady voice and keep my response simple. “You killed my parents.”
He lowers his eyes then, not in shame but in disappointment.
“See the folly this boy,” he spits the word at my face, “claims I’ve done?” I drop my gaze but he holds a firm forefinger and thumb on my chin so that I have nowhere to go but into his diminishing stare. “I offered them a position among us. They refused. And what do we do to those who deny us, men?” Still holding me, he gestures to the pair behind him.
“We dispose of them,” they say in harmony.
“Exactly. You see, child, they killed themselves in their irrationality. They wrote their own death warrants and signed them with their blood! They were so foolish to not even consider the fact that they could escape.” He frowns as if it had not been obvious, but he does not understand. The Tebts never run. “You should be not as clouded as your parents, Nual. Don’t choose the same fate as theirs. Such a waste.”
Claudios releases me then. I stand there, rubbing the area where his flimsy fingers held, tears threatening to over flow. What happens next, I do not anticipate.
I’d been possessed to utter the words, “It was your hand that slew my parents.” All ideas of keeping calm for Cenna’s sake rid off my mind.
Just as he reaches his followers, he pivots at the speed of light, a man of forty-seven years of age, a ready glove of flames surrounding his hand, and punches me full in the gut. I fly ten feet across the meadow, arms and legs sprawled in front of me while my backside juts out. The impact of the ground feels rougher than it had when I ran on it with bare feet. I do nothing but lie, yesterday’s scant meals at my throat.
“You stupid old man!” I hear Cenna squeal at Claudios. I want to scream at her to stop – she can’t transform! – but my mouth is too busy wrenching out my insides.
“Let this be a warning to you, boy.” Where the Pyromancer’s gargoyle-like cackle – mixed with those of Randal’s and Henry’s – was twenty meters away, it now bellows over me. He shows me his fist, the fires dancing prettily around his fingers and wrapping around his wrist. “This flaming hand’s first kill was not your parents’ nor was it its final. You will be wise to remember that.” He stalks away on that note, with Cenna at his heels, punching and screaming.
“Cenna! Come.”
She returns to me and helps me up, though only scarcely helpful.
We walk the rest of the way to the shack that is now our sleeping quarters beside the coast where the Red River Delta meets the sea. I labour behind the three Talents, clutching my sides while holding Cenna’s hand. We trudge on through heavy but bearable rain – no doubt caused by the runaway – high and low slopes clad in thick mud. It is a relief to reach the small shack just as the rain dies down a little.
Henry and Randal sit by the couch in front of the cheap television they found (I believe they stole it, but no matter). Claudios goes straight to one of the two sleeping bags available. I look around at the scene and feel completely out of place. I don’t belong with these people, I think.
“Where do you think you’re going, Nual?” Randal’s raspy voice echoes through the shack.
“I’m going out,” I answer. I may be a junior and unfaithful to their cause, but I’m not a prisoner just yet.
Randal didn’t seem to believe that though. He scans the tiny room for Cenna, knowing I wouldn’t try an escape without my baby sister. When he spots her snoring softly in the corner, he throws a can of beer at me and says “Get out of here”.
With nothing but a t-shirt and shorts to protect me from the – yet again –bucketing rain, I jog a steady pace towards the crashing waves. By ten feet, I start shedding the clothing that remain to me, not caring whether anyone sees me naked – we’re to leave Haiphong, anyway, by the time the moon turns, going south-west to Ho Chi Minh City, where we believe the Japanese runaway will head next. I dip my feet in first, gasping at its coolness, but enjoying it. I sink deeper into the ocean and when the water touches my torso I sigh in relief as the waves lap at the area where the flaming hand punched me. When the heat gives way to coolness, I dive into the water, swimming deeper and deeper into the darkness. Holding my breath while submerged, I open my mind’s arms yet again.
I’d only attained my Talent a month ago, when – when my parents died in battle. Claudios and his men only allowed me a week to recover from my transformation and to test my ability’s flexibility, and we were off to catch my first victim – fugitive, they’d called it. So I haven’t had time to harness my potential.
Right now, I hear the rain pounding the sea’s surface while waves crash onto the beach. The rain dominates over all other things but in the background I hear the small sand particles flowing in the turbulence of the waves as it deposits and is transported along the coast. Farther out, I hear the swish of a tail-fin flicking the water and the sound of a shark pouncing at another. Even farther, the noise of a horn on a container-carrier bellowing as it comes into sight of land.
Very faintly, the clap of thunder reaches my limits. But it isn’t a normal clap. It is eerily too swift. Like a fat man making scarcely any splash as he dives off a diving board. I doubt anyone can hear it like I can, but how can I be sure. It shouldnot be too far away if the furthest I can hear is ten kilometres. Should I report back to Claudios?
I rush back to the shack, forgetting too late that I had forgotten my shirt.
“Claudios!” I yell, not caring whether I’d disturbed anyone’s sleep. They’d disturbed my life.
“What do you want, Latraki?” he groans, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“I think the runaway’s storm is upon us.”
He frowns at the two men who also rouse awake.
“But that’s impossible for a storm to travel so quickly,” Henry chimes in oh so helpfully.
“Are you lying to us, boy?” Randal accuses, sounding bored, brushing his long hair aside from his eyes.
“No! – I’m just, I heard it!”
“The boy does not lie,” Claudios asserts. “Well,” he sighs, calm.“We ought to depart at once, sadly.”
“Awesome,” Randal says, now believing as the first of the thunders become audible to normal ears. “Where to now?”
“Henry?” the headmaster asks into the darkness. “Where did you say the child is due when you entered his mind?”
“South,” the Seeker responded with a yawn. “He attacked us by the time I could extract any other information, I’m afraid.”
“Then we should depart for Australia it appears.”
“But I though you said he was going to Ho Chi Minh?” I ask, confused. I’d rather travel over land via a rusting train than a creaking plank regarded as a boat across the South China Sea.
“What you have to remember, kid,” answers Randal, “is that things are never as it seems. The Japanese could go anywhere around the world and be days ahead of us. But why guess and chase him when we can wait for him where he is most like to be.”
“You need to open your eyes like you open your ears, Latraki,” Henry backs.
