Gamma Leaves Home - 1. Chapter 1

Gamma breathed deeply, blue-metal eyes closed as the breeze played in his silver-flecked hair. His skin, already dark, was tanned from working the gardens of the Malmoken, hours of sunlight echoed by his skin’s melanin.

Steel blue eyes opened to gaze at the pond one last time. Just yesterday he had stood on the banks and cast lines with his tribe-brother, Joe. They had discussed Gamma’s Exodus, his leaving that was scheduled for his sixteenth year. He had planned to leave after Winter passed, but a few days ago his mother had told him something about his father that had changed everything.

The morning breezes sang in his bones, a soft melody that eased the fear that had been gnawing in his gut for the past few days. There was something about nature that had always smoothed the jagged edges of life, something in the wind and rain and sun that was constant.

The sunlight tingled in his skin, reminding him of the… episode… The strange time when he had been walking through the gardens, across the grass plains, and felt as though his mind had slipped out of time.

At first he had thought he was having a sunstroke, but when he failed to grow weak or pass out he realized that something else was going on. He was euphoric, he was mellow, he was something that outran everything he knew in his brain, and he suspected that no one else knew what it was.

Even now he could slip into that awareness. Just as he was connected through his mother to certain things, places, and people, he was likewise connected through his father to things he could use, places he could go, if only he knew how to open his mind to those things.

His father had been a Dhijob, one of the super humans that walked away from the Corporation that had made them. They had been the ones who had opened the eyes of the Outlaws and freed people to the Arts, to the things that were in-between possibility and reality.

He needed a Seer to see what wasn’t there, to give him someplace to start looking for his father.

The Malmoken society did not practice the Art of Seeing, and as most Seers did not practice the Art of Sobriety, they rarely were sought by the Malmoken.

That would come later. For now, he had to say goodbye to these places from his childhood. When his mother had told him her secret, the identify of his father, she had told him that the knowledge made him a man now. He had the right to leave before the Spring Exodus.

Gamma had decided in his sleep a few days later. Waking up that morning, he had awakened to some new understanding, something that just felt right in his gut. He was pulled into action by a wit that came without words.

As he walked among the rows of beans, picking the green pods from the vines, he decided he would leave that night, after he told his friend Rumi goodbye.

Gamma sighed when Rumi’s warm embrace reached out from memory. The healer adept had decided to cross the Pasifik Ocean during the Spring Exodus rather than stay in Amerigo. When he had learned of Rumi’s plans, Gamma’s childhood daydreams had died violently from the potent venom of reality. For the past three years the two of them had shared their first love with each other, a forbidden practice among the Malmoken. Gamma had always thought that when he and Rumi left they would leave together to find a place to build a life.

A smile rippled across Gamma’s face as he consoled himself with his plans for action. The night would fall, then he would slip off, saying no grand goodbyes. It was better that way, to just disappear so that tears would not dissuade him. He would eat supper one last time with his tribe brothers, then, as they slept, he would leave. Just as childhood was leaving him, he would leave childhood.

The sun was rising higher; it was time for him to finish harvesting the beans and then weed the garden.

     

It was mid afternoon when he finished for the day, walking to the teepee he shared with Joe, Kraig, and Rumi, the other boys in the Malmoken tribe. The dust of the fields coated his warm, sweaty skin, Gamma’s throat screaming for cool water. He grabbed some clean clothes, blue jeans and a tee shirt, then went to the bend in the river where the boys bathed.

Over a few hills and through a thicket he walked till he found the calm crook of river water, four feet deep with a sandy, pebble lined bottom visible through a window of cold water. Shedding his dirty clothes, Gamma splashed in, toes playing in the loose rock on the bottom of the river.

Cupping water in his hands he washed the dirt from his face, plunging under the glassy chill of river water to scrub dirt from his hair. When he came up, sputtering and cold, he took a drink from the river to quench his thirst.

After he was rinsed off, he swam back in forth a few times in the lazy bend of river, the cold currents sliding along his skin. Up and down a ways, the river slack in its course, Gamma dove once more, opening his eyes underwater in time to see a small, silver-speckled fish dart by.

He swam for a few minutes more, then got out of the calm water. As he dressed he hear a rustling in the undergrowth that gave the river bend some privacy.

“Who’s there?” Gamma called, pulling his shirt over his head.

“It’s me, Rumi,” his friend’s voice replied, Rumi’s smiling green eyes and black-brown hair coming into view. “Oh, I’ve missed the best part,” he smiled as Gamma put on his socks and shoes, his brown hair wet and clinging to his head.

“Nothing you haven’t seen before,” Gamma retorted, smiling while his stomach seized up at the sight of his friend. Can’t love conquer all? Gamma wondered, his hands tracing Rumi’s stubbly jawline. Their eyes screamed out in the silence of familiar touches. Lines were drawn in the sand, that was it. All that existed now were the moments that counted down to goodbye.

Rumi looked away.

“I’ll always love you,” Gamma said.

Green forest eyes met blue-metal ones.

“I’ll love you too,” Rumi replied, “You’re leaving, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

Gamma nodded.

“Joe told you about my father.”

Rumi nodded. “I hope that it wasn’t a secret,” he said.

“It shouldn’t be,” Gamma said. They walked in silence, to nowhere in particular. Chores were done, the rest of the day was theirs with which to do whatever they wanted.

“Why not wait until the Spring? We could travel together a ways…,” Rumi suggested, squeezing Gamma’s hand in his own. Gamma chuckled and shook his head.

“I want to go now. Why should I stay here? You would be my only reason, and you are not permanent. You’re leaving the continent for another. I can’t follow you.”

Rumi nodded and turned his head, pretending to watch a bird perched in some nearby branches.

He had struck the nail head-on, pierced the heart of the matter. In choosing his path Rumi had drawn his line. Now Gamma was etching his own, saying goodbye to a piece of his heart as he prepared to leave it.

“You have a plan then?” Rumi asked, keeping pace in the conversation while Gamma and he wandered through the afternoon-lit woods, a warm drowsiness in the late Summer air.

“Of course,” Gamma lied. In truth, he was just leaving, doing what his unknown father had done and just walking away. There was nothing here for him. The Great Spirit the Malmoken worshipped preferred men to keep away from his female followers, and he gave no recognition to the young man whose voice had deepened. Most assuredly the Great Spirit would not hear the prayers of a tainted man, a man who chose other men.

Rumi also gave no recognition to this not-quite-a-man. Why should he? Having learned the Healing Arts more thoroughly than Gamma, Rumi had a bright future ahead of him among the Outlaws of the Pasifik.

Gamma, on the other hand, tended to melt from view. His path had always been questionable, difficult to see. Fame was not his, nor did he really want it to be.

“I’m going to meet my father,” he told Rumi, who smiled and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Be careful, Gamma. The world outside is tough.”

Gamma laughed. “So says the naïve. Don’t worry about me. Enjoy the rest of your time here.”

They trekked along a familiar trail, ground into the forest floor from years of Malmoken footsteps heading to the sea. The Pasifik was twelve miles away from the commune, but Gamma had no plans to visit the beach that day. What was the point of saying goodbye to a means of escape, if ever he decided to follow Rumi’s course?

Gamma smiled. If ever…

“Where are we going?” Rumi asked, squirrels rustling through the pine branches.

“I dunno,” Gama shrugged, “I was just walking for the fun of it.”

The aroma of pine needles punctuated the cool, shaded air. Among the trunks the memories of him and Rumi floated, the kiss they had shared one full moon while the tribe was returning from a festival on the beach. He remembered the time he and Rumi had camped in the woods for a few weeks, eating fish and squirrel while they held each other at night.

From the look in Rumi’s eyes, Gamma supposed he was remembered the time Rumi’s mother had died from influenza, how Gamma had found him in the wood, crying under the boughs of an oak. That was the first time they had just held each other, no words, just touch.

Rumi stopped walking, putting his hand on Gamma’s shoulder.

“Before you leave,” he said, leading Gamma off the beaten track and into a thicket of young pine.

“What is it?” Gamma asked, Rumi replying by bringing himself hip to hip with his friend, arms wrapped around the small of his back.

“I want to say good bye to you,” Rumi whispered, kissing Gamma on the lips and resting his forehead against Gamma’s. Forest green eyes stared into steel-flecked blue, Rumi playing with Gamma’s silver streaked brown hair.

Gamma kissed Rumi’s lips, hard from the sun and thirst. A fire roared from his stomach to his groin, Gamma running a hand along Rumi’s spine, under his shirt. Rumi’s green eyes closed as he shuddered in the ecstasy of his friend’s touch. Two years now they had been sneaking away to solitude so that they could enjoy the other one’s presence. As shirts came off and they explored the well-known contours of their bodies, the reasons why lines had been drawn were temporarily forgotten.

Nails dug into skin as they began to wrestle, pinning each other down and torturing each other with light touches and kisses in tender regions. Gamma hissed in pleasure when Rumi scratched along his neck, tracing the red streaks with a row of soft, warm kisses.

“Please remember me,” Rumi whispered into Gamma’s ear as they embraced and began to nap together, one last time, the warmth of skin on skin lulling them to sleep.

     

Elora brushed a strand of brown hair out of her eyes, blue-green and wide. She knew many monosexuals, but had never been witness to such an… aggressive, private moment.

The sixteen year old Outlaw had been creeping through the forest when two boys her own age had come crashing through the undergrowth within fifteen yards of her. Elora had crouched behind a tree, hoping they would continue onward, but after a few minutes it had become clear that they were staying a while.

Now she waited until she was sure they were asleep before she could move on.

Damn…Now I see why Heathe likes watching two chicks make outElora felt her tanned cheeks flush warm as she focused back on her mission.

The Malmoken were known for the quality of their threadwork, but what was less known was the amount of gold and gems their skills had amassed. When she and Heathe, her… “acquaintance” (for lack of a better word) had discussed this, she had decided right then and there that her duty as an Outlaw was to liberate some of the treasure to fund her own tribe.

Having a tribe of one’s own was a sign of power, and it hadn’t escaped Elora’s attention that she hated the set rhythms of the merchants’ trade routes. She loved the freedom she discovered in the Wilds of Amerigo, the high places in the mountains and the sun-fired deserts. And she wasn’t above liberating a few hundred pounds of gold here and there to achieve her goals.

Elora wasn’t like Heathe though. She was creeping toward the Malmoken commune alone because of her different style; Elora was not willing to use force to get what she wanted. She used only tranq darts, where Heathe felt free to use killers for his shot.

Her plan was simple; she had visited this place before on the pretext of business so as to learn where the Malmoken hid their treasure. Once she had found the only building with a lock on it, she had spent the rest of her business trip smiling, buying a few rugs and clothes for herself with the allowance she had plied sweetly from her father.

It was late afternoon when she reached the edge of the wood, a river before her and another thicket on the other side. She crossed quickly after she was sure there was no one watching her, and she climbed into a tree to hide and keep an eye on the Malmoken fields that she could see from her vantage point. Elora would wait there until night fell and she could travel without being sighted. Using her backpack as a support, she made herself comfortable as she waited for darkness.

     

Gamma pulled himself out of the well of dreams, the birds calling the evening hour. Rubbing he sleep from his eyes he rolled around and kissed Rumi’s nose. The healer adept woke, his green eyes panicked at first, then calm. Rumi’s mind had never been gentle.

“This is the last time I’ll wake up with you,” he said, looking at Gamma’s chest. Red lines drawn by his nails had attracted mosquitoes during their nap. Gamma’s warm arms pulled Rumi in, the smell of sweat and earth and forest a well-known, erotic memory. Venus was just appearing, the western horizon still glowing with leftover daylight.

“It’s time to go,” he said at length, handing Rumi his shirt while he finished dressing. In the dying light they returned to the commune, heading to the kitchens where dinner was being served. They slipped into the line that reached outside the small brick building, smoke and steam floating into the sky.

Most of the people were silent, worn weary with the work of the day. A few chatted as they went through the line. Rumi and Gamma, best friends that they were, had their conversation in the half-articulated, half-understood way friends speak amongst themselves. They went through the line and joined their tribe-brothers Joe and Kraig on the patio where the Malmoken ate and discussed and debated with each other.

They sat on the concrete steps leading up to the tables and the airy space filled with women’s voices tackling nuances in weaving or sewing or gardening. Rumi and Gamma ate in silence, Joe and Kraig carrying the conversation as they talked about going fishing the next day after chores.

The Great Spirit of the Malmoken had said that men were not part of the Malmoken. Though loved by their mothers, only woe came from men. Gamma thought about that as he crunched through his salad, eating his yogurt and eyeing the beans with trepidation. He was unwanted by the Great Spirit, his existence due to the trickster Leckyoh convincing the Great Spirit to create humans as split so as to prevent them from rising against the gods.

So men and women were created, weakened by their separateness. The Great Spirit realized what had happened and tried to correct Its mistake, but it was too late. Men had received one half of the Knowledge of the Gods, and women the other half.

According to the Malmoken teachings, men could not understand the teachings of the Great Spirit. They did not receive the Knowledge that allowed women to heed the Wondrous One, and because of this they warred.

In sorrow the Great Spirit decreed that men and women should be separate, that no male was allowed to stay past the time of his sixteenth year. Women would go out when they wanted a child and mate, but because men could not meet others halfway, because they desired to control, to possess, they were not able to live in peace.

Gamma smiled; even now he and Rumi were not meeting halfway. They couldn’t. There was a distance between them because of who they were.

Joe, Kraig, and Rumi rose around him, the three having finished eating their meal. Rumi’s green eyes looked to Gamma. “I’m done. See you when you get back.”

And then Gamma was alone, the noise of seekers seeking perfection coming from above him on the patio.

     

The night sky had arrived, the western horizon now dark as stars came to dance their nightly waltz through the heavens. Gamma felt the chill in the breeze that touched his skin as he entered the burlap teepee he and his friends had made when they were younger. A smile flickered on his face when he realized that they had been living in it since they were twelve. Inside the cavernous tent a nice fire burned, the dried pine wood in a ready pile outside the teepee.

They had each taken a quarter of the teepee and kept their personal belongings there. Depending on how cold it was they would sleep closer to the fire or to the side of the tent. Tonight wasn’t cold; Gamma would probably make his bed between the fire and the wall so as to make the other boys think that everything was normal.

Kraig and Rumi were playing cards near the fire, Joe reading through notes Gamma had made about gardening over the years. Gamma joined Joe, the younger boy smiling as he looked up from the handwritten notes.

“Hey, I have a question for you,” brown-eyed Joe said as Gamma sat by the fire.

“What’s that?”

“Does it matter what kind of manure you use?”

Joe often helped Gamma in the fields with the Malmoken, and was curious about the things Gamma had noticed in working with the soil and plants.

“I don’t know, I never considered it. Why don’t you figure it out and write down what you find out?”

Joe grinned. “Yeah, that would be some interesting shit.”

Gamma sighed while Kraig chuckled at Joe’s joke.

“Yes, Joe, it would be,” Gamma said. He prodded the fire with a stick that was handy.

“So I heard that Chief Rolling Rock is coming through here earlier than usual. Apparently his daughter came through last week and bought some things,” Joe said. The merchant Outlaw usually arrived closer to the Autumn festivals, when the days and nights were equal lengths and he could trade for food with the Malmoken.

“Why is he coming earlier?” Rumi asked, finished with the card game.

“No one knows. Linda thinks he may be trying a new route.”

The boys nodded. Chief Rolling Rock was another hero among their parent’s generation. He had fled the City shortly after the Municipal Gunners began their campaign against the Dhijobain that would not return to their owners. A merchant Outlaw, Rolling Rock had a reputation for hiring all types of people, giving a chance to those who otherwise didn’t have one. He had hired assassins for bodyguards, taken in Sativa Runners and thieves, teaching them honor, training their skills and honing their talents. It was even said that he retained a Dhijob for an advisor.

Those who served him loyally were rewarded well. Rolling Rock was a Chief to rival all Chiefs, a shrewd businessman and a wise man overall. He alone had been allowed to speak directly to the High Priestess, an honor that no man before or since had been given.

The Malmoken traded annually, spices and books for their clothes and threadworking. Gamma’s mother was particularly well-off, her goods consistently of high quality and value. She had always made sure that Gamma had books to read, and for that reason he was a rather intelligent young man.

“Are you still going to work for him?” Joe asked Gamma. Before he had found out about his father, Gamma had given a lot of thought to becoming a healer for the Outlaws. It was a good job, and was always in demand.

“I don’t know,” Gamma answered. Perhaps it would be best to talk to Rolling Rock. The Chief might have some information that would lead him to his father.

“Well, he should be here in a couple of weeks,” Joe said.

Gamma sat for a while, his friends chattering around the fire while he stared into the flames. He knew his plan to just walk away was not well thought out, but to stay here, with Rumi a reminder of what he couldn’t have… It just couldn’t be like that.

He got to his feet and headed out of the tent.

“Where are you going?” Rumi asked.

“Just stepping out,” Gamma replied, leaving the burlap teepee behind him.

Night ruled, the stars and planets twinkling in the heavens. Gamma’s blue-metal eyes watched a meteorite streak across the inky sky. Around him the commune’s cabins and buildings were tucking in for the night. With no light, it was the sensible thing to do, and had the others not felt like staying up Gamma would have feigned sleep.

Might as well stick with the planhe thought, watching the last of the candles be extinguished from the window it had been in. He would wait until everyone was asleep, then he would take his pack and leave.

     

Elora climbed down from the oak she had hidden in; it was time. Heathe would be here soon.

She kept to the shadowy edges of the surrounding wood, picking her way toward the store room. The trees cast strange shadows as she moved, at times she was certain that someone was dogging her steps.

Her mind kept her distracted from the monsters of her overactive imagination. When Heathe had talked about the Malmoken, Elora had seen th sparkle in his eyes, the pleasure he wasn’t going to deny himself.

She had warned her father about Heathe, his red-headed Madness and overindulgence in violence, but Chief Rolling Rock remained convinced that Heath was a decent fellow. He hadn’t worried about Heathe’s light fingers because they had always plundered the funds from his rivals and not his own.

Elora stopped to check her tranq shots one last time. Hopefully she could stop him after he took some treasure and leave him sedated with the guilt. At the very least she could save the day and be rewarded.

Win-win situation, right?

She cut across the night-shaded hollow of a hill and peeped over the crest to view the center of the complex. In the moonlight she saw the storeroom door, closed and solid against the night. No sign of Heathe.

Elora had to chuckle at how simple it all was. Heathe had jumped at the chance to have Rolling Rock’s daughter help him rob the Malmoken, and hadn’t batted an eye when she told him she just wanted to play lookout. Of course, he hadn’t known that the sixteen year old girl was just as crafty as her old man, and had no idea that Elora was planning on robbing him blind after he did the dirty work for her.

Men were easy to play. Something she had learned from N’athir, her father’s Dhijob advisor who had played more of a caretaker role for her throughout her life.

Pulling the flare gun from her backpack, she got ready to send it up so as to distract the Malmoken and let Heathe break the door and grab the loot. She checked her watch. Nine-fourteen. In one minute she was to send the flare up.

She pulled out a pack of bottle rockets and a lighter, more distraction in case the flare wasn’t enough. God this is too easy she smiled. Loading the flare gun, she checked the time once again. Nine-fifteen.

And then she heard it, far away yet moving quickly, a mechanical growl that was becoming louder as it neared. The blood chilled in Elora’s dark cheeks, her perfectly easy plan burning up in front of her.

“Oh shit,” she said, seeing the headlights from a distance and running as quickly as possible so as to not be seen. “Damn you Heathe!” she hissed as she hid in the tall grass, the rusty jeep he drove with his three friends whizzing by a few seconds later. Roaring through, Elora could have sworn they ramped the hill in the moonlight, candles flickering to life below them as Malmoken women came out, armed with sticks and spears and bows.

There was no way she could play the hero now. Heathe’s drunken antics left her without options. She would have to find another way back to her father’s tribe, and only hope that he didn’t connect her with the news he would get when he stopped by to trade with the Malmoken in a couple of weeks.

She kicked at an empty rum bottle that the party had tossed as they drove by, the rage hot in her stomach as she started walking back to the dirt road that led away from the commune.

     

Gamma had heard the roar of the jeep before Elora. He and the other boys had set their teepee closer toward the road from which the jeep came, and as soon as they heard the machine’s growling they were up and running toward the commune to rouse the others. Everyone had grabbed their weapons, but Gamma had always been a quick thinker. While the other boys ran to warn the commune, he grabbed his pack and headed away from the Malmoken, toward the road which skirted a large knoll before the commune.

As he hurried through the night, he heard a single shot and looked back to the commune to see everyone he had grown up with swarming the intruders, spears gleaming in the moon light as the Malmoken let out furious battle cries.

A smile ghosted across his lips, gratitude toward the Great Spirit who had, in his wrath, given Gamma the perfect opportunity to leave this place without questions, without fuss. As the Outlaws died in the streets of the commune, Gamma began running. His legs were sturdy on the familiar terrain, the dirt road a race track stretching back from childhood memories that he was now escaping, the screaming and gun shots a backdrop of the pain that he was leaving behind.

No more Rumi. No more Joe and Kraig. No more smiling mother who gave him big books that discussed how the gods were imaginary, that taught the uses of the wild herbs and how to grow the turnips. As he ran along the dirt road the ghosts of his childhood friends raced alongside him in the night-shadows, Joe’s small voice crying for him to wait up when they were younger, Kraig and Rumi looking back from childhood memories and taunting him to keep up.

His legs pumped harder, Gamma keeping his mouth shut as he remembered to breathe deep and regularly. The moon was peeking over the tree line as he kept running; the dirt road was five miles long before it intersected the main highway that the merchants often took.

As he got into his stride he decided that he would only run for a mile or two. After that, an easier walk would be okay. But for now, the further away he could get, the better. Fire flushed into his thighs as he pressed onward, jumping some bigger rocks that the moonlight revealed.

Down the road he ran, tree trunks flickering by in the moon-lit darkness as owls hooted out warnings. Had he always had this stamina? Gamma wondered as his breathing still came regularly. He had never run this hard, this fast, ever before in his life. Without thinking it seemed that he could see just as well in the darkness as he could in daylight.

After what seemed to be about three minutes he found himself at the crossroads, the ancient asphalt of the highway cracked and dry. His mouth, too, was dry, he was sweating, and there was a strange pain in his buttock. Looking at his ass he pulled a small, cylindrical dart with tiny feathers on it.

“What the h--?” he didn’t finish his sentence, sleep claiming him in the middle of the road.

     

“You’re fast for a human,” Elora panted when she caught up to Gamma’s prone body. She had started chasing him when he took off, trying to prevent him from bringing an end to her own escape. She had had no choice but to tranq him when she realized that he ran faster than she could, but was surprised to see him continue running off into the night.

She had started worrying when she could no longer see him. She had been outran before by other men and women, but never when they had an cheek full of horse-grade tranquilizer. Twenty minutes later she had found him passed out at the junction of the highway and the dirt word leading to the Malmoken commune.

At first she was going to pass by and head on toward the nearest tribe she knew of, but she noticed he had a pack and the thieving instinct took over. She lifted it and looked inside, using the illumination of her watch-face to see what he carried. She found a hefty blade, the hilt carved from what appeared to be ivory.

“Not bad. Not quite the treasure I had in mind, but it’s a start,” Elora mused aloud.

A hand grabbed her ankle, causing her to scream and kick the hand with her free foot. A second scream sounded from the boy she had tranqed.

“That was your dart, then?” he asked, rubbing his face and trying to fight the grogginess he felt. Elora rolled her ocean blue eyes, offering a hand to help him up.

“Yes. It’s mine. I thought you were going for backup,” She quickly put the knife back into his pack, handing it to him. “You dropped this, by the way.”

“I’m sure I did,” he narrowed his brow, putting the pack back on and rubbing his eyes with his hands. “Who are you?”

“I’m Elora. Are you okay?”

“I’m Gamma. And I’ll be fine once I get out of here. I was busy escaping when you knocked my ass out.” His steel-blue eyes locked on her sea-brine eyes in the moon light. “Were you with those Outlaws that attacked the Malmoken?”

“Er… Yes… and no. I was going to liberate what they were planning on stealing.”

Gamma looked at her for a few moments, then started laughing as he walked down the highway. “That’s great, thieving from thieves.”

Elora rolled her eye again. “I would be a thief, if Fortune favored me.”

Gamma snorted.

“You were wasting your time, anyways. The Malmoken value everything except gold and gems.”

“What was in that locked room then?” Elora asked, following him down the road.

Gamma shrugged. “A bathroom, in case someone wants to bathe in private or perform a bathing ritual.

Elora blinked, then began laughing hysterically. “Wow… Just wait till I tell Dad that Heathe got killed trying to rob a bathroom…God… I may not be cut out to be a thief after all.”

“You knew the Outlaws who attacked tonight?”

Elora nodded.

“Unfortunately, I did. He was a part of my father’s tribe. I’ve been warning Dad the red-headed peckerwood was crazy, but no one seems to listen to you if you have tits.”

Gamma shook his head. “You would like the Malmoken. They think men are stupid.”

“Really? I don’t know much about the Malmoken,” Elora said.

“Well… not so much ‘stupid’… But when we turn sixteen we have to leave the tribe. Men are not welcome in the commune.”

“Oh, wow… That’s gotta suck. You were raised up there, right?”

Gamma nodded. “Yep. And now I’m heading out before the rest of the sixteen year old men leave. Get a head start on finding a job.”

“Do you have any place to go?” Elora asked as they walked north along the old highway.

Gamma looked away. “I’m going to meet my father.”

Elora nodded. “Where is he?”

There was some silence for a few moments. “I… Don’t really know. I’ve never met him.”

“Hmmm…,” Elora said, then grinned. “Well, with Heathe’s untimely passing, there is a spot open on our rosters.”

Gamma looked to her ocean blue eyes. “What do you mean?”

She grinned widely at that. “My father’s tribe. We need some more workers.”

“Who is your father?” he asked.

“Chief Rolling Rock.”

Gamma’s eyes closed as he doubled over, laughing hard from the events of the night and the irony that he had gone through in the past twenty four hours.

“What’s so funny?” Elor asked, eyes narrowing.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I was going to end up meeting you anyway. I was planning on finding Chief Rolling Rock and offering my services as a healer. I’m not especially great or anything, but I’m still learning and can do rather well with raising plants.”

Elora giggled.

“N’athir should be here soon to pick me up. He’s good at finding me like that.”

Gamma looked nervous. “Who is N’athir?”

“He is my bodyguard. A Dhijob.”

Gamma nodded. “That’s neat. You sure he will give me a ride?”

“Well, you’re unofficially part of us, now that I’ve tranqed you in the ass.” She held out her hand to shake. Gamma took it and barfed from the wooziness of the tranquilizer, Elora’s screams filling the night around them.

     

N’athir cursed as the pick-up bounced over the dirt road, the continual wetting and drying having cemented rocks in the lane. The Dhijob was not a happy camper. Elora had come up missing earlier that day and it was up to him to find her before Chief Rolling Rock released the hounds to find his precious baby girl. N’athir was the only person who could track people without needing a RFID tag-tracker like the Municipality used.

When will that girl stop pulling these pranks?N’athir wondered, yawning as his body called out for sleep. The Arts he used to follow another person over several miles, while potent, drained the energy from him faster than fighting with ten men at the same time.

Well, at least Heath is gone.The Dhijob smirked. He had never liked the thief, and when Elora had infiltrated his plans to rob the Malmoken, N’athir had to bite through his tongue to not blow her cover. If Rolling Rock found out that N’athir had not tried to stop her though… Shit would hit the fan. He was just glad that the Essence that was Heathe was no longer registering on his radar.

Elora though… She had been afraid, angry, and now she was very pissed, though the rage only lasted for a moment. Now there was something else around her Essence, something that he never had come across. It was warm and cold at the same time, color edged in a grey that only his own people put out among the Essences.

He shivered, goosebumps raising the silver hair on the back of his neck. He should have gone with her rather than let her have her way. Heathe was not to be trusted, and now she was alone with some strange…

Boy?He mused, sensing the well-defined Essence of masculinity beside her defiant femininity. He could not be certain, but there was something there that needed to be investigated.

N’athir ran his hand through his silver-grey hair, skin creamy pale in the light from the radio system in his truck. He watched the road ahead of him as it turned to asphalt, the old highway from before the War still holding up after all these centuries. It was a testament to something enduring that humans back then could build things with such longevity.

Judging from how her Essence felt, Elora was forty miles down the road, almost a half-hour by truck. Overall, she wasn’t too far away from where the tribe had made camp for the week, but still… Rolling Rock preferred her to stay close by so that she could be safe.

He popped a CD into the radio system, a copy of classical string music the tribe’s tech wiserd had burned for him. After a few moments the sounds of violins and cellos filled the cab, mellowing out his mood as he traveled down the ancient highway.

While the music transported him away from his frustrations and worries, a sudden chill catching him as the music swelled. There was something happening in the world, some force at work weaving the threads of destiny to tell some story that was beyond his ken.

“May the All bloom eternal,” he muttered in his native tongue, a traditional way to ward off the nervousness that accompanied seeing things that were not there. He had felt shifts like this with more and more frequency, stirrings in the gut that the Dhijobain called etherai. These sensations of change rippled throughout the threads of reality, those lines that connected everything to each other and allowed him to keep tabs on people without need a cell or tracking device.

Normally the etherai were naturally occurring, those warm moments of joy that filled the heart with happiness and peace. It was the cold ones that let Dhijobain know when powerful Arts were being worked.

Driving alone, N’athir was in no position to interrogate the threads, and seeking answers later would be like trying to separate sand from mud with bare hands.

N’athir growled. He was primarily a bodyguard, but his passion was studying the Half-world, the place where possibility was more important than actuality. It was an arcane knowledge, but since the Dhijobain had walked away from the Corporation they had been sharing their knowledge, as it was the only form of currency they had. Those with military training could barter with those skills, but how long would that last?

He doubted it would last for long. While humans were slow to understand the tools given to them by the Dhijobain, there were more powerful than they allowed themselves to be. In his less-lucid moments N’athir saw the humans reclaiming the dying earth with the Arts learned from the Dhijobain.

He never saw his people in those visions. They were too eager to slip away to a world of their own creation. They lived in rifts, cracks that dug into the Half-world. The Dhijobain would rather slip past history’s ruffles than be a part of the real world.

Not that it mattered to him; all signs pointed toward this being his only life, and he rather enjoyed it. He was paid to do a relatively simple job, and his side projects brought in a bit of wealth for him to spend on Sativa and Sangria.

The classical music soothed him, the night calm and gentle. He drove in a symphony, the road settling to a smoother surface.

     

“Feel better yet?” Elora asked, twitching from her near encounter with the projectile vomiting.

“Yeah… How long till your friend gets here?” Gamma asked, his stomach threatening him with flashes of nausea.

“We’re meeting him halfway. Gotta keep walking back toward camp though. I’m really sorry about the tranq… Most people don’t react that strongly,” Elora apologized.

“Yeah, well, if the timing you told was is accurate, I metabolized that poison fast. It was probably just a side effect.”

Elora looked to him while they walked down the star-lit road, heading north toward her tribe.

“How good are you at healing?”

“A fair bit… I haven’t really had a lot of practice, just read a lot of books,” Gamma answered, the uneasiness in his stomach fading after vomiting. He thought for a moment to all the books still in his mother’s house, remembering her smile. He hadn’t said goodbye, hadn’t even told her that he was leaving that soon, but somehow, he was sure she knew.

“N’athir could teach you a bit, if you earned his favor,” she smiled at him in the dark. N’athir would teach anything that sat still long enough. He often tried to teach her bits of his native tongue, but Elora had never been much for learning. She preferred doing to thinking, and while N’athir knew several Arts, all she ever felt the need for was her tranq shots and pistol.

Gamma nodded. “Perhaps. I’d be happy to just find my father though. I had hoped that maybe through working for your father that I could find him.”

“Do you have any idea where he might be?” Elora asked, always eager to jump in and help another person out.

“Err… No… My mom didn’t tell me that much. I know his name though: I’hewhe.”

Elora bit the corner of her lip, tilting her head as she thought.

“Well… I can tell you that we don’t trade with any I’hewhe, not that I know of. Sounds like a Dhijobaines name.”

“Yeah…It is,” Gamma said, keeping pace with Elora along the dirt road.

“Really? I’ve never heard of a Dhijob fathering a human child,” Elora said.

“Yeah, well… It might be best to keep that as secret as possible. I don’t think that many people would react well to that.”

Elora chuckled as she slung her backpack into her arms.

“No, they wouldn’t. Most stupid monkeys like to think that they are superior to the Modifieds.” She pulled a canteen from her pack and offered it to Gamma. “I haven’t got cooties,” she added.

Then she stopped and looked at him, breaking out into giggle when he took the canteen from her.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, taking a drink of water.

“Oh… I saw you making out with your boyfriend earlier this afternoon,” she said. Gamma sprayed water all over her in his shock.

“You WHAT?!”

Elora wiped water from her face. “I was moving through the woods when you and some other guy showed up and ripped each other’s clothes off. Don’t worry though… After you fell asleep I moved on.”

Gamma just shook his head and drank some more water.

“You are one strange girl,” he said, handing the canteen back to her.

“Yeah, well, I feel safer now that I know you aren’t going to rape me.”

Gamma chuckled. “Yeah… Sorry to disappoint, but I left the guy I love behind. You have boobies… Not interested.”

“Well that’s good to know,” Elora smiled, drinking some water and putting the canteen back in her pack.

They walked a bit farther when a thought struck Gamma.

“What’s a modified?” he asked.

“It’s the old name for the Dhijobain, before they left the Corporation and helped my father’s tribe leave the City. It’s rude to call them Modified now. They are people, not property,” she said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Gamma said, feeling better now that he was hydrated.

Above them the constellations twinkled, signs that had been left behind by the old gods. In the past, when he was a kid, Gamma had studied the constellations. Night after night he would lay outside and watch the Hunter stalk the zodiac, laying on his favorite blanket. Sometimes his mother would lay with him and they would watch the slow waltz for hours. Even now he could tell the time by looking to the heavens.

“It’s close to eleven,” he said, noting where the stars were at the moment.

Elora looked at her watch. “How close?” she tested him.

“Oh… Hmm…,” he thought for a bit, “Maybe five minutes till?”

She showed him the time, ten fifty-three.

“Well… I was only two minutes off,” Gamma smiled, more comfortable now that he and Elora had established a somewhat easy friendship.

“Yeah, I’ll pretend to be impressed,” Elora teased him. They laughed a bit, then saw a pair of lights in the distance.

“We better get off the road,” Elora said, leading Gamma to a stand of pine trees that were growing beside the asphalt highway.

“Why are we hiding?” Gamma asked. Elora giggled a bit while she crouched down. “We don’t know who that is, silly. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a Malmoken commune, but out here in the real world it’s always best to wait until you can figure out if a stranger is a friend or a foe.”

“So how do you know that you can trust me?” Gamma asked.

Elora was quiet for a few moments, watching the headlights approach their hiding spot. She eventually sighed a bit.

“Honestly, Gamma, I don’t know that I can trust you. I’m giving you a chance though because for some reason I like you. You were running away from your home. It’s something that I can relate to.”

Gamma nodded, watching the headlights of a truck slowing down through a crevice in the boughs of a pine tree. He and Elora watched as the truck stopped, his heart stopping for a moment as he realized that they had been spotted.

“Hey… Wait a second,” Elora said, watching as a tall, slender man stepped out of the truck. She stood up and rushed out of the pine grove toward the stranger, Gamma gasping at the suddenness of her movement.

“N’athir! My savior!” she cried as she threw her arms around the man. “Come meet N’athir, Gamma!”

Gamma stepped out into the road, stifling a gasp when he saw the silver hair gleaming in the moonlight. The man, N’athir, had his hair cropped short, his cream-pale skin a sharp contrast with Elora’s dark tan and near-black hair.

But N’athir’s most striking feature were his eyes, the cold, wild intensity they threw off, slate-grey in color and almost reflecting the moonlight as the man studied him. Gamma suddenly felt as though a cold hand was passing through him, laying bare things that should be kept secreted away.

He returned Elora’s hug after a few moments. “No more solo stunts. I’ve been worried about you all day.”

Elora sighed. “Heathe got his drunk ass killed by the Malmoken.”

N’athir nodded. “I thought as much. Who is this young man?” They looked back to Gamma.

Running a hand nervously through his silver-flecked brown hair, Gamma chuckled nervously. “I’m Gamma. Nice to meet you, Mr. N’athir. Elora has told me a bit about you.”

“We’re going to induct him into the tribe!” Elora smiled. N’athir shook his head.

“Your father is not going to be happy about your misadventure. That may affect Gamma’s acceptance.”

Elora’s jaw dropped. “He has to accept Gamma. If he doesn’t, I’ll run away again.”

N’athir laughed a small laugh, one that did not disconnect the eye contact he kept with Gamma.

“That ploy only works a finite amount of times…,” N’athir let go of Elora to approach Gamma. The young man gulped, feeling a strength of presence that reminded him of the oddness he had felt recently when he was alone, as if his own awareness were expanding. The tall Dhijob studied Gamma intently, like a scientist might a small bird.

“Oh…,” his grey eyes widened a bit, “I never thought…”

Instead of shaking Gamma’s hand, he grabbed it and put it over his chest, above his heart, as he put his hand on Gamma’s chest.

“Your mind floats. Don’t try to read or pull anything. It will come.”

Gamma’s brows knitted. “What are you tal-“

“Shh,” N’athir said, staring into the steel-blue eyes of the sixteen year old. The trio were silent as Gamma and N’athir locked eyes, Gamma trying to form questions but feeling as though words were washed away by colors and emotions and images from his childhood. This was something that he did not understand, but it seemed to come naturally.

N’athir spoke.

“You are looking for someone, Gamma, but you don’t know where this person is. There is fear there, a nervousness… Something world-changing is coming for you,” the Dhijob blinked as he dropped his hand away.

“Elora must have…,” Gamma tried to rationalize, then realized that she had not contacted N’athir in any way before now.

“You can do it too, Gamma. You just haven’t woken up to it yet. You saw something too.”

Gamma nodded. “Colors, feelings… I don’t know what they mean though.” Then he shook his head, unsure of what he was doing. This man…No…He isn’t…Is he?

Here was a true blue Artist, in the flesh. Gamma had heard of the Art of Kenning, of knowing things just by touching them, but had never known that he too might harbor the talent. He was quiet while N’athir directed them to get into the truck.

“Shafon was right, once again,” he said while Gamma and Elora got in. N’athir pulled a u-turn and started driving back to the camp.

“How was Shafon right?” Elora asked. N’athir chuckled. “Not now. Gamma has a lot to think about for now. He has Dhijobaines blood flowing in his veins. His world is going to get a lot more interesting soon.”

“How so?” Gamma asked, still trying to figure out what had happened. N’athir looked to him for a few moments.

“Gamma, I’m sure Elora will nominate you for induction, but if you would like to learn more about the Arts that are a part of your heritage, I will speak on your behalf as well.”

Gamma thought for a few minutes while the sound of classical string music floated gently through the cab.

“I told ya he would want to teach you something!” Elora giggled, settling comfortably between her two friends.

“N’athir, how did you know that about me? Who my dad is, and what I can do?”

The Dhijob smiled, his fierce gaze never leaving the road.

“We can spot our own, Gamma. Your hair, your eyes… They don’t catch the moonlight like a full-blooded Dhijob, but in the right angles there are sparks of light. Not to mention the Essence that makes you who you are. There is an edge to it that marks you, if anyone is subtle enough to feel your Essence.”

Gamma smiled, glad that the music was low key and calm. There was something about the way N’athir described him that just felt… right… Like how Rumi should have been able to talk to him, to know him in that way. Wait… Why am I thinking about him now?

“What was that with the hands over our hearts?”

“It’s one way Dhijobain greet each other. We call it aqmathe in our tongue. It’s a way to gauge how to interact with the other.”

Gamma’s brain felt as though it was straining to understand. It was late, he was tired, and he only half-way understand N’athir’s explanations. He spoke Inglish well, yet in a way that seemed to hide a piece of something, some bit of information that would explain what he was thinking. Gamma suspected that the information was important, but he was too exhausted from running and being tranqed that he couldn’t put two and two together.

He had to stifle back a yawn, only just catching it in time. Elora smiled as he pulled his hand away from covering a yawn.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back at camp within an hour. You can rest now, if you want.”

Gamma nodded as N’athir took off the jacket he was wearing and handed it to him. “Roll it up and used it as a pillow. You’ve worn yourself out today.”

He took the jacket and wadded it, using it to prop his head against the door. Elora reached over and locked his door. “I fell out once when I didn’t lock it,” she smiled at Gamma, “Wake ya up when we get home!”

He smiled and closed his eyes, feeling the pick-up slow as N’athir avoided potholes.

They really are kinda nicehe thought to himself, feeling the fear that he had been holding on to loosen its grip just a bit. The soft music carried his mind into the inky silk of sleep, the echoes of his past few days playing out in the stirrings of dreams.