Alex Dumon had been a boy like any other, once. He’d had friends and family, gone to school during the week, movies on Saturdays and church on Sundays, read fantasy stories about legendary heroes and watched television shows about everyday men. He’d even deigned to do math homework and mow the lawn once in a while. Then his father had called him into the kitchen one summer night and told him the Domun family’s deepest secret, the reason their family reunions were so small even though both his parents came from large families. The reason his sister Kate never came home for holidays. His father had explained, and Alex had listened. And when the school bus had pulled up to his corner the following September, Alex Dumon watched it leave from his bedroom window. That afternoon he left behind the only life he’d ever known and begun a new one in Khrennad.
Life as a Towers student was difficult – endless lessons, followed by equally wearying chores, then a few minutes to study, eat and sleep before the morning started the cycle again – but he’d adapted to it well enough, and if he perpetually had bags under his eyes, well, so did all of his peers. There had been plenty of occasions when the continuous stress of managing his time and energy had become overwhelming, and more than once he’d wished he could just run away and leave it all behind, but at no time in the past three years had he ever truly regretted his decision.
Until now.
The desk chair’s wooden legs snapped as they met the bare white wall of his somewhat cramped quarters, and the student in the next room over gave an indignant shout that Alex didn’t hear. His right fist followed the chair. The agony that erupted in his knuckles made no more impact on his mind than the sickening crunch of bones had; indignant cries cut off suddenly and Britni blinked in shock at the arm that protruded through the wall. Before she could say anything, though, Alex had withdrawn his hand, slung his white-trimmed cloak around his shoulders, and slammed the door behind him. The printed letter in his other hand was paler in color than the knuckles of the hand in which it was clenched, but not by much.
Alex had to work to keep back the scream that kept trying to bubble up in his throat. The effort that took left no room to concentrate on keeping back tears as well, and they spilled over his face in a silent deluge, as unnoticed as the ache in his broken hand. Nicholas Black had been his closest friend, back in Mandreka. They’d all but grown up together, and when Alex’s older brother had vanished without a trace, Nick had stepped up to fill the empty space. He’d become a part of the Dumon family in all but name. And now, this.
The letter itself said little. It was from Nick’s mother, a short curt note with a single tearstain smudging the bottom near her shaky signature. Details came in the form of a newspaper article clipped behind the letter as if its inclusion had been an afterthought. It didn’t say much either, but enough. More than enough. Nick had been found huddled in an alley, shivering and delirious but with no sign of a fever; a week-long stay in the hospital had ended with his transfer to the mental ward, where he had been treated for multi-personality disorder. No one knew what had brought about this change. Three months had seen some improvement, and the fourth his complete and traceless disappearance. The doctors that had treated him in the mental ward claimed that he would be unable to survive long on his own, seeing as how only a complicated mix of medications was keeping both his mind and body functional, and two days ago he had been publicly pronounced dead.
The barely-supressed cry came bursting forth in a fury. By the time it faded, Alex had seized the coarse fabric of space-time that was Khrennad and jerked at it, tugging one thread out of alignment, forcing it into a strange twisted knot that joined the coarse fabric with a slightly more refined fabric at that one place. For the merest of instants the hallway remained, the city street just a superimposed image, but then the hallway melted and disappeared entirely. For the first time in three years, Alex stood in the center of Demora City. His hometown.
A car honked, and he scrambled to the side of the road. Strange. Only three years, and he’d already all but forgotten about so many of the things that were commonplace in Mandreka’dan life. No time for that now. Thoughts chased each other through his head, each more frantic than the last, but his feet moved as if of their own accord.
His anger spent, and his grief held at bay for an instant by the intense concentration necessary to make the crossing from Khrennad to Mandreka, Alex had had time to remember that he had an edge the rest of the world didn’t when it came to Nick. It was not something his friend knew about; it had only made its appearance sometime last year, and he had never seen any point in telling anyone. In fact, he hadn’t realized that it had to do with his friend at all until he’d read the newspaper clipping. He’d thought his dreams had just been brought on by the stresses of Tower life, or maybe the cafeteria food. Now, though, the recurring dreams of an empty construction site under the clear sky, running in place or huddling next to an earthmover’s engine for warmth, while his fingers and toes turned numb and his stomach clenched in ever-tighter knots, suddenly took on a clearer meaning.
Unfortunately, nothing in any of those dreams had said where this construction site might be. He wasn’t in the clear yet. A likely-looking gas station on the corner caught his eye, and he made his way quickly towards it. The bell dinged as he opened the door. The blonde behind the counter raised an eyebrow and leaned forward; at the very last second he remembered that the Mandreka’dan’i here didn’t bow their greetings.
Apparently, I’ve forgotten more than I thought, he told himself wryly.
"Uh, hi," he said, shifting his feet nervously. He gestured at his cloak, and the student uniform underneath. "I’m...ah...helping my friend make a movie here in Demora, but I’ve lost the map he gave me. I know it’s by a big construction site. Do you know of any around here?"
She nodded, accepting his quick lie, and furrowed her brow in thought. "They’re clearing ground for a new subdivision a few miles that way," she said, pointing somewhere in the general vicinity of north. "It’s about seven miles back into the woods, on a service road. That’s the only big construction site around right now."
"That must be it then. Thank you, mistress, and good fortune go with you." He was straightening back up when he realized his error, too late. He forced a shrug that he hoped looked lighthearted. "Sorry. Just trying to get into character." The woman laughed and waved him out the door.
Seven miles was no short hike, especially with the two miles’ distance to where the service road met the main road, and particularly in the thick Tower uniform and cloak, but he made decent time anyway. He’d been in good shape before leaving Mandreka, and three years of trotting up and down the Tower staircases had increased his endurance considerably. Even so, darkness was beginning to gather under the trees when he finally came to the edge of the construction site.
All of the numerous doubts he’d begun to have during the course of his long walk faded. This was the place, all right. He cast a nervous glance at the sky; he believed he could have found his way around well enough even in pitch-black, but finding his friend was a different matter altogether.
"Nick!" he shouted. "Nick! Where are you?"
Silence.
He stood motionless for a moment, unsure; if Nick had heard, then he would be coming toward him now, and Alex should stay where he would be easy to find. But at the same time, if Nick hadn’t heard, then standing still would be worse than useless. A moment’s listening made his decision. Nothing at all was moving in the construction site.
It took fifteen minutes for Alex to cover the entire clearing, stumbling in the growing darkness at a half-run, and another fifteen to fumble his way in the darkness to the side of a bulldozer. He sank to the ground, panting. This was getting him nothing but bruised shinbones.
He ground his teeth in frustration, and started to ball his fist; a sharp pain made him hiss, and he remembered his broken knuckles with a mental slap to the forehead. Punching the wall had definitely not been one of his better decisions. Coming here wasn’t turning out to be such a great idea, either, it seemed. "Nick, buddy, where are you?" he almost moaned.
Shuffling on the other side of the bulldozer made the back of his neck tingle, and he was spinning around even before he heard a voice say, “This who you’re looking for?”
The voice belonged to a rail-thin, dirty-faced bearded man in clothes that hadn’t seen soap or water in weeks. Neither had his teeth, for that matter. He was squatting, balanced on his toes, and his lips parted in an almost feral grin as Alex stepped around the front of the bulldozer. A long bony finger pointed at a shapeless bundle lying at his feet in the gloom. It was Nick. His chest barely moved as impossibly shallow breath fluttered in and out of his lungs.
"Ain’t moved since this afternoon," the bearded man nearly cackled. "Laid down over ‘ere after the workmen left, ‘round about four o’clock, and ain’t twitched a hair since. I ‘spect ‘e’s 'bout dead." The skinny finger reached down, touched Nick’s jacket collar almost reverently. The scratchy voice grew distant. "Don’t figger ‘e’ll be needing this much longer, old Billy can always use a better coat, yes... Won’t need that watch, either, where ‘e’s goin’. Or those shoes. Not my size, but there’s money in shoes, there’s always someone needs shoes, there’s good money in shoes." A gnarled hand moved towards Nick’s feet, and Alex kicked it away.
"He’s not dead, and you’re not taking anything of his," he snarled. "Now get out of here."
The bearded man bared his teeth. His voice became a growl; suddenly, he seemed more like a rabid dog than anything else. A tiny corner of Alex’s mind realized that he’d seen the man’s face before; not clearly, but it had swum once or twice across the foggy confusion of the construction-site dreams. "I found ‘im! I been waiting for ‘im to die for four days, you ain’t takin’ none of Billy’s shoes!"
It took a moment for the full import of the man’s words to sink into Alex’s mind.
"You’ve been waiting for him to die." His voice was soft, quiet. It carried the sound of steel being bared.
Billy, if that really was his name, didn’t seem to notice the threat; his full attention was back on Nick, and hungry eyes glittered in the darkness. "Think maybe I’ll ‘elp ‘im along a bit," he muttered to himself. "Should have done that days ago, yes, but old Billy was patient, old Billy was nice, old Billy kept his hands to himself, and now old Billy’s gonna ‘elp the poor sot out of ‘is misery, yes..." Before Alex could move, the bearded man had somehow managed to make a three-foot piece of thick twine appear in his hand and had it wrapped snugly around Nick’s throat. The unconscious teen hardly twitched as the twine pulled tight.
Alex launched himself at the bearded man with a cry and knocked him to the ground. He scrambled backwards and was halfway to his feet when the man locked his arms around his feet and pulled him back down; Alex landed on his broken hand and gasped. By the time he’d recovered enough to push himself back to his knees – using his left hand; his right was pressed to his stomach with as much pressure as he could bear, to keep it from getting in the way – the bearded man had fled into the night.
Alex hurried to his friend’s side and tossed the – thankfully loosened – twine as far away as he could. He could feel Nick shivering under his hands, not enough to be visible but far more than the night’s tiny chill could account for. Alex was suddenly glad he’d kept his Tower cloak. He wrapped it around Nick’s shoulders as gently as he could, then rocked back on his heels and tried to think.
He didn’t have time to go back to Demora for help, and even if he did, he couldn’t carry Nick. He was taller than Alex by nearly a head. That left taking him to Khrennad, to the Tower hospitals. The only problem with that was, Khrennad’an’i didn’t take very well to Mandreka’dan’i outsiders being brought in. They didn’t mind people who were related to Khrennad’an’i, or the rare few who transported themselves to the other world on accident, but for the most part they didn’t like Mandreka’dan’i to learn of Khrennad. Perhaps "didn’t like" was a mild term; they absolutely hated it, and went to great lengths to avoid it.
But...there really wasn’t a choice. Nick needed medical attention, badly. They were just going to have to make an exception. Alex placed his left hand on Nick’s shoulder, trying to ignore the way it shook under his touch, and concentrated.
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