The Mantis Corruption - Book Three - 8. Chapter 8 - Olona, Part Two

A man entered the Goat’s Maw with a large bell in his hand. “Oi, ye lot!” he called out over the hubbub of the tavern.

Olona looked over in his direction.

“Oi! ’Ear ye, ’ear ye!” the man said with a thick accent. “Dis is a call out for any ’ealers! To de far nort’ of our lands, de village of Kestapoli done suffered an ’orrific attack. Some of dem residents be needing care.”

Olona perked up, took another puff on her joint, and handed it to the barmaid. She then headed toward the man.

“I can help,” Olona declared to him.

He gave her a doubtful look-over. “Ain’t ye a bit young?”

“I’ve been trained in healing,” she replied. She did not mention what type of healing she did, in case the man was adverse to organic mechanics.

Olona ended up being the only one in the pub interested or willing to make the river journey north.

The man headed on to another bar, as Olona ate her breakfast. She then went out and purchased a ticket for the northbound ferry from Tuilii la Ru and headed back to the part of the city where her former masters were looking for her. The local rivercraft was the fastest way north, but when she arrived at the dock, there was a 30-minute wait before the next departure.

Olona raced back to the house where she had lived for three years as an apprentice, to collect a few more of her things that were not part of her emergency bag. Several people in the street were very surprised to see the young woman go past them faster than a normal human, but she was long gone before any of them could react.

She turned onto the boulevard with her address, and sure enough, several masters were out front. They were talking together and pointing at her front door, and they looked angry.

“Dammit,” she growled.

Olona turned and flew back through the city at a dizzying speed. When she was near the docks again, she found a quiet alley and zipped into it. If anyone was after her because of seeing her with enhancements, she knew that she could rush off again. When she was sure that the coast was clear, Olona stepped out of the alleyway and walked the last few blocks at a normal pace. She walked up to the captain of the ferry and handed him her ticket with a smile.

Two hours later, Olona was halfway to Kestapoli, and she arrived at the town of Galopis; it was on high alert. There were only 10 minutes between her arrival and the departure of the connecting ferry that was going to take her on the second leg of the journey.

Olona spent the brief time questioning the locals who were on the wharf. They confirmed for Olona that a monster had attacked the town of Kestapoli at sunset the evening before, and Galopis was preparing itself to make a defensive stand against the creature. The people informed Olona that it would still be a matter of days before the thing would make it to Galopis, but they needed to be diligent if they hoped to protect themselves.

The next river ship departed with Olona and a few others who were headed the rest of the way north. Kestapoli came into view just under two hours later. When they arrived, Olona immediately made herself known, and she was directed to the makeshift infirmary that was set up for the wounded villagers.

The victims who had survived the monster’s attack were in a bad state. One woman was heavily bandaged. She was hunched over, seated on a gurney, and groaning in pain. An older woman was stretched out in a coma. There was a nasty gash on her cheek that was bandaged, but blood still seeped from it. In one corner, another woman was whimpering to herself and would not respond to anyone. A man was strapped down to a bed, and he was twitching. A bandage patch was over one eye, and another covered his ear. Both of his arms and both of his legs were bound with splints, and his breathing came in slow wheezes.

Olona stepped up to the healer who was overseeing the injured.

“I’m an organic mechanic from Ruburge,” she informed the woman. “How can I help?”

The healer gave Olona an uncertain glance, and she asked, “What are you allowed to heal?”

Olona knew that was a common question that came up for organic mechanics, even though the whole idea of limiting her ability to heal seemed preposterous. “What’s wrong with her?” Olona asked, pointing at the unconscious older woman.

“Severe concussion with a deep laceration to the cheek.”

Olona was not permitted under the guidelines of her order to revive someone from a concussion. “I can help with the face wound. What about the others?”

“Broken all four limbs,” the healer said, pointing at the man. “Lost an eye and a lot of blood,” she added. She turned to the bruised woman. “Several broken ribs on her right side, multiple lacerations, some severe.” Then she pointed at the last woman. “She’s been partially catatonic, won’t react to anything, just keeps crying.”

Olona nodded. “I can speed the healing of all the broken bones, but I don’t have the equipment for his eye.” Olona turned to the unresponsive woman in the corner. “What happened to her?”

The healer tutted. “Found out her kid’s one of them Shifts.”

“No!” the woman suddenly shrieked. “No, she’s not! I didn’t birth one of those freaks!”

“She did,” the healer said to Olona.

“Nooo!” the woman howled.

The healer ignored her even though she was now responding. “Her daughter is fine. The witch took her and a boy out of here before the monster showed up.”

“Kidnapped!” the woman screamed.

“She doesn’t seem catatonic anymore,” Olona commented. “What does she mean? And what witch?”

“The witch of the whitewater,” the healer explained, “she’s a local fortune teller. She knew the monster was coming, snatched them kids who it would have eaten, and she hid them in the forest.”

Then the woman in the corner roared. “We killed her!”

“Your daughter?!” Olona asked in a shocked voice.

“No,” the healer said quietly, “the witch and her helper brought the children back unharmed,” she paused and looked over at the raving woman, “and they murdered the witch.”

“For saving the children?” Olona squawked.

The formerly-catatonic woman cackled. “And we chased her little minion out into the Infinite Waste! She was the first one, years ago, the first one the witch got under her spell, the first one the witch took, and then she took my daughter!” the woman wailed.

“Glad I was apparently able to help with the catatonia, as well,” Olona whispered to the healer, while she began to treat the man’s broken limbs.

Outside, the sun slowly set, and Olona kept working on the four survivors late into the night. When she completed all of the permitted healing techniques, she finally headed out into the darkness.

Kestapoli was silent. Even the inn seemed unwelcoming with only a single candle burning in one window.

Olona’s mind turned to the extra information she had received from the angry woman, and she looked into the Infinite Waste. Someone was lost out there, may have been lost for an entire day already. Olona did not know how she could find the witch’s helper. She was tired from her whirlwind of a day but opted to continue even farther north. Olona wanted to see if she could find the so-called witch’s former dwelling. She came across the witch first.

Tied to an old knotty tree was a dead woman. She was naked, and every inch of her skin was marked with strange patterning. Ropes were wrapped around her corpse many times from her ankles to her neck. The shafts of several arrows protruded from her torso and limbs, and a pile of rocks at her feet declared what the townsfolk did.

Tears sprang from Olona’s eyes at the sight of the abused and murdered woman.

“I’m done helping these villagers,” Olona said between her gritted teeth. She wiped her eyes hard.

Olona stepped around two large pieces of thick scaly material that lay beside the tree. A boulder was on top of them. She could not tell what the material was, but she did not like the look of the things. Olona lit a joint, and little clouds of smoke puffed into the air above her head, as she continued upstream.

Less than an hour later, she found a hut.

“Hello,” Olona called out, “is anyone there? I’m a healer from the south, Ruburge.” She was hopeful that the witch’s helper made it back from the Infinite Waste, but she got no reply and approached the little house.

“Hello!?” Olona knocked on the door.

Still, no one answered.

She sat down on one of the chairs outside the little dwelling.

The witch’s corpse flashed into her mind, and Olona wished she could leave Xin to find a life for herself, where people were different than Xinitians.

Her exhaustion brought more tears to her eyes. The suspicious and backwater folk of Kestapoli were just as horrible as her restrictive teachers, but in their own uniquely cruel way.

Olona cried into her hands.

“What do you want?” barked a voice off to one side.

Olona put up her palms in a peaceful gesture, and she peered through the darkness. “I’m just a healer,” she said quickly, sniffing hard to force down her tears. “I arrived from Ruburge earlier to help the injured.”

“There’s no injured here. Leave.”

The question that Olona then asked surprised even herself. “Why are you staying in this place?” The words felt rude as they left her lips, and Olona regretted phrasing it as she did.

“That’s my home.”

A woman stepped out from the trees. She was thin and tall, and she looked severe.

“I mean,” Olona tried to reword her thought, “why are you staying here, now that the witch is…” her voice trailed off.

“Her name was Liovia,” said the woman in a tone that sounded both hollow and overwhelmed by misery.

“The people of the village,” Olona said, “they are horrible.”

“They’re my people,” the woman retorted.

Olona tried to choose her next words carefully, but she was tired. She sighed. “Why don’t you just leave?”

“And go where?”

“Anywhere,” Olona replied, “what about down south, Ruburge, or the surrounding area?”

“Look, girl,” the woman said, “I’ve spent most of my life in this forest, I can’t go anywhere else.”

“What about going,” Olona paused, “erm… northerly?”

The woman looked startled.

“And my name’s Olona.”

“Why did you say it like that?” the woman whispered in a voice of shock.

Olona was puzzled. “Because,” she replied, “it’s… erm… my name?”

“No, the word north. Why did you say it like that? Northerly.”

“I don’t know. I’m really tired,” Olona stated. “I think I just mispronounced it. I don’t know what I’m saying. I just came up here to see if you needed help, but since you seem to be in need of nothing, I’ll be on my…”

“Liovia used to repeat a line with that word,” the woman interrupted. “She used to say it out of the blue, for no reason at all. Life is northerly. She never explained it and I always dismissed it as more of her nonsense.” She fell silent.

“I’m sorry,” Olona said quietly. “I’m sorry she’s gone, and I’m so sorry for how it happened.”

“Please, don’t apologize for someone else’s villainy.”

Olona hesitated, then asked, “What’s your name?”

The woman sighed. “Tisa,” she said.

“Tisa, I’m sorry Liovia is gone.”

The tough facade cracked, and Tisa broke down in tears.

Olona cautiously approached and placed her hand on Tisa’s shoulder. Her crying slowly diminished after several minutes, and Olona asked in a gentle voice, “Was she your mother?”

Tisa spoke between her shuddering breaths. “She was like a mother, or maybe more like a big sister,” she added. “I’ve lived here with her for more than half my life. I have no one else and nowhere else to go. And I don’t know why you just said northerly,” Tisa continued, shaking her head, “or what Liovia meant. There’s no life up north; there are only mountains and more forest.”

Olona was curious. “Did she say anything else when she said life is northerly, anything along with it?”

Tisa rubbed her eyes. “No, like I said, she would just say it from time to time, no rhyme or reason.”

“Did she have other things she said that made no sense?”

Tisa scoffed and another tear trickled down her cheek. “Half of what she said was nonsense. I don’t know if she saw the future, or if she was somehow living in a past version of herself or something. In all that time with her, I never figured it out, and she never really explained it to me.”

“I wish we could just leave Xin,” Olona mumbled, and she yawned. “Ugh, I’m so tired.”

“Let’s go inside,” Tisa offered. “I’m also ready for sleep. You can rest with me here. It’s safe.”

“Safe?” Olona questioned. “With those townsfolk just a short hike away? It doesn’t seem very safe.”

“I assure you,” Tisa replied, “no one can enter the witch’s region without permission.”

“Well,” Olona replied, “I did.”

“I wasn’t here, so preventing you was not necessary. Through the night, we will be protected.”

Tisa’s words brought unexpected comfort to Olona.

“Come inside with me,” Tisa urged, “and I know that you said your name, but I’ve already lost it. Please, tell me again.”

“Olona,” she said as they both entered. “How old are you?” she asked.

Tisa looked contemplative. “Birthdays were meaningless here in the forest with the absentmindedness of Liovia, but I’m fairly certain that I’m 30, or thereabouts.”

“Wow, you’re old,” Olona replied. She slapped her hands over her mouth. “I didn’t mean that,” she whispered.

“Nice,” said Tisa with a sarcastic smirk, “and what are you, 14?”

“I’m 17, thank you very much,” Olona replied in her own snotty tone.

“Okay, kid, you’re alright,” Tisa’s smile got a little bigger. “Here, let’s get you set up on the cot, and we can get some sleep. Again, now that I’m here, no one can enter the region. You’re safe.”

“Thank you,” Olona said.

“And thank you,” Tisa replied, “for helping the injured people from my village.”

Olona scoffed. “Fuck them, and fuck that town. Sorry,” she added.

“No,” Tisa agreed, “you’re right.”

“What other weird things did the witch, I mean Liovia, used to say?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tisa replied, as she gave Olona a blanket and climbed into her own bed. “She used to say all kinds of things, but I don’t know if I can think of them offhand.”

The two fell silent, and although they both felt awkward about the situation, Olona was soon asleep. Tisa lay awake, pondering her encounter with the girl. Eventually, she too drifted into slumber.

Tisa awoke as the sun rose. She waited for Olona to wake up as well, and when she did, Tisa told her, “I thought of another. Don’t forget to go to the coast first. That’s something Liovia used to say at ridiculous times. While cooking, don’t forget to go to the coast first. Repairing the cottage, don’t forget to go to the coast first. Fishing in the Ru…

“Don’t forget to go to the coast first?” Olona interrupted.

“Exactly,” Tisa replied, “I think that’s our route.”

“Wait,” Olona responded, “our route?”

“I think you’re right,” Tisa explained. “I thought about it for a long time last night. I think we need to leave the land of Xin. Will you come with me?”✪