Chapter 3: Chapter 2: Sound Investigation

But where was I with my prologue? So I slit the squire's throat and he returned the favor crowning me with a death mask, to use an older phrase. Older.

It was hours after I killed the boy that my scorched skin cooled off. I woke with a whimper, my mind too distracted by pain to appreciate the cerulean sky now above me. Too busy trying to breathe through clenched muscles to smell the morning air, to miss the sound of chirping birds.

The pain dulled due to sheer repetition, yet I merely lay there. Later. I could tally which muscles worked, which didn't, and which were stewed to a frothy goo later. I noticed the day sky for the first time and breathed a sigh of relief.

 My Story

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The leaps and bounds technology has sprinted in the past one hundred years boggles the mind. Electricity was discovered a thousand years ago, but that information was useless on its own. The Danielus Battery created the machine. Pullies became cranes that built buildings taller than the old world ever did. Horses sit glassy-eyed in the fields, phased out by cheap electric motors that even the poorest day laborer can afford. Humans born base and unremarkable fly in their machines.

The world electric. More progress in the last hundred years than in the previous hundred thousand.

In seeming defiance of that progress, Kael Rasgard strode through the winter-black morning in nothing but tennis shoes, jeans, and a deep-cut white t-shirt. The wind's pricking teeth gnawed at his skin and he flinched as pelts of snow fell broadside. But for him, it was the equivalent of a cold shower to start the day– brisk and refreshing.

While Joshua Rasgard was your everyday, average, chasing-after-a-horse-person, Kael was a Psychic, or to use the day's terminology, just Syche. A controller of one of the four Elements: Blood, Lightning, Metal, and Combustion. Specifically Combustion or the release of energy.

The only reason for him to wear a coat was to blend in.

Kael preferred to stand out. People didn't assume you had powers; that was for the crazies. They assumed you were tough. Kael didn't see it as fronting– simply advertising a plain fact.

Warm and burning as hot as someone with a light fever–a personal preference – Kael made his way through the unplowed town square. "Morning," Kael grunted, passing by someone covered head to toe. He received a satisfactory look of confusion as the person compacted under layers of wool and synthetic fibers looked him up and down.

His wardrobe wasn't just grandstanding. Kael had turned every second of his day into an advertisement. In a short few weeks, the entire sleepy town of Einhurst had come to know Kael by reputation, and he used that reputation to continuously beat home one singular message: Find me Doctor Bartholomew. He wanted the Doctor to be the only thing they thought of when they saw him.

It was why he and Joshua were here. To find someone special. Not just any doctor, but a singular man and quite possibly the only one on the planet who had what they needed: someone to save their mother's life.

Not that anyone would know that by the way Joshua traipsed around, though. Looking for some "Man in Black." Or was it "Rider in Black"? Bah, Kael couldn't be bothered to keep track of what his brother was up to. As if any of it would–or could– help find the Doctor.

As the thought crossed his mind, Kael hooded his eyes. His powers couldn't improve his vision after all. Joshua hadn't been back to their room at the local inn last night. That wasn't exactly odd behavior for his brother, but it typically meant that Kael should brace himself for some grand absurdity.

As black sky turned a slightly softer tint, Kael trudged into the local diner which was always filled this time of morning. In agrarian communities like this, it would be strange to arrive any later. He slid into a faded red booth with the faux-leather seat of patchwork peeling skin. He raised a hand and caught the busy waitress's eye line, a mug materialized a couple seconds later. Come every morning, and they know what you like– dangerously scalding.

Kael leaned to the side to pull his phone out. No messages. It was unlikely Joshua had come in and then left while Kael was sleeping, but it was impossible to tell. The way Joshua kept his side of the hotel room was. . . well. . . a haphazard maelstrom of human existence. Kael trying to figure out if Joshua was there last night would take a chain saw. He could cut through the clutter and count the rings– one ring for every day in the hotel.

This brought up a question in Kael's mind: could the Rider in Black be real? No. He audibly expelled air from his mouth. But on the other hand, maybe? There was no way the Man in Black had anything to do with Doctor or the supernatural, but Kael wouldn't question some drugged-up hillbillly playing spook.

Oh well. Joshua had plenty of experience getting shot at. He'd turn up sooner or later.

"You seen my brother?" Kael asked forcefully as the middle-aged waitress filled his mug. Her faded yellow uniform bore brown stains over the torso. The fringes of skirt that lay loosely over a pair of warm pants were frayed and thready. If the woman owned more than one uniform, they too must be a wreck because he had never seen otherwise.

"Curly brown-headed kid? That's your brother, huh?"

"Perceptive. I haven't seen him since he went to work at Jensen's the other day."

"Is that what he's been doing? Working out that way? I've been hearing strange stories about you two and it didn't involve no fieldwork."

Kael had expected strange stories. In fact, he had spent two weeks cultivating them, trying to turn this town into his own private set of eyes and ears looking for Doctor Bartholomew. "That was me, not my brother," Kael said after taking a sip, the pleasant scorch burning a hole to his stomach. "Just been asking everyone what I asked you the first day. Haven't heard anything about him right, the Doctor?"

"No dear. Keeping my ear to the steam as it were." She continued on seeing Kael's confused glare. "Ear to the ground, ear to the steam. What we call the ground here in winter, on account of all the steam. Just a bit of folksy phrasing for you."

Kael grunted. "Cutest phrase I've heard all morning."

"It's only six?"

"Right. So," Kael cleared his throat. Better to change the subject now than let that sit. "Doubling the reward if you get me a lead on the Doctor. And if my brother comes in, let him know I'm looking for him."

"Looking for who now?"

It wasn't the waitress that spoke but Joshua himself as he slid into the booth across from Kael. Kael heard the bell trill a few seconds ago at the door but hadn't bothered to pay attention.

"Where have you been?" Kael barely got the words out, because his brother was covered in blood. Flaky crusts of dried brown clung to his coat and his hair. Kael could practically smell the faint aroma of iron. Not a smell that mixed well with the grease and coffee in the air.

"Hospital," Joshua said. Quick. Matter of fact.

"Now I don't care, how this happened," the waitress cut in. "You can't be coming up in hear looking a mess. And looking like that, your welcome to head right back to the hospital.

Joshua yawned and blinked excessively. His eyes bore spidery red veins and his face drooped. "Uh. Sorry, running slow. It's horse blood. Not human. You gonna tell me a bunch of farmers are squeamish about that?"

Kael hefted a deep sigh and buried his face in his hands, while the official response his brother received was silence. The woman crossed her arms and cocked her head.

"Alright, alright. Just get me some food to go and I'll be out of your hair." Joshua started running a hand through his hair reflexively but stopped as he felt what was there. The waitress remained silent though so he continued. "Can I get something. . . ." He drummed his fingers on the yellowed table nervously. "No caffeine. No sugar either. Just meat I guess. Quick bite before I go to bed." He beamed a wide, twitchy smile.

"Horse blood at the hospital?" Kael asked.

"No. The Man or Rider or whatever. I found him and chased him into traffic. It was some local boy playing a prank." Simulatneously as he spoke, his hands signed out his order: "Sausage links, eggs with cheese. Light on pepper."

Physical language had been a part of human culture since the beginning, and that wasn't going to change. There were even some early groups that only used the unspoken languages. This reliance evolved into Rus. Regimented Use Sign was the univeresal language. It didn't matter what language you spoke; you knew Rus. You knew all the hand motions and body taps. And that was the trick: a single set of physical vocabulary. Each langauge group might organize the words differently based on gammar, but you could always jumble the words back together.

Not perfect, but a universal solution.

"And you went to the hospital, why?" Kael felt asking that question now that the waitress left.

"After ten minutes of first aid, it just felt like my civic duty." Joshua smiled. "Plus, anyone who owns a horse has money. Never hurts to be nice to people with money."
"You hate people with money."
Joshua shrugged. "I didn't say genuinely nice."

Kael leaned back and rolled his eyes. His brother had an automaton-like mentality for doing "good". It's why Kael held on to their money at all times. One man on the street with a sob story and they'd be broke.

"J, I have one place I want to visit today," Kael started. "After that, we can attend the festival tonight and then go home. Assuming I find nothing." Kael placed his clenched fists with a protruding vein running atop each on the table and leaned forward. "I just, I don't know what else I can do to find the man."

"Hom?" Joshua asked with a mouth full of food, little crumbs of sausage falling on the table.

Kael looked around hesitantly. Where had Joshua even gotten it? He must have swiped it off a plate that was going by, but he could hardly point that out now.

Joshua swallowed. "Been what? Two months since we've been home. Too long." He paused, rapping his fingers on the table. "Not to downplay the whole Doctor business. I want to save mom's life as much as you."

"Wish me luck then. I'm heading to the one property I already had problems with."

"The one that pulled a shotgun on you?"

"Yup. The closest thing to suspicious I've seen."

Joshua chuckled. "That isn't suspicious. If you weren't my brother, I'd want to shoot you too." Joshua paused. "Actually. . . ."

"Funny," Kael said with a wry expression. "I'd be more worried if you were trying to miss me. The only time you hurt anyone is when you're not trying."

"Whatever. You want my help today or what? I might not think things through, but I'm the only one of us who has the ability to think."

"Not now Josh." Kael brought his hands to the back of his neck and clenched up. "I really don't know what I'm going to do if I don't find anything on the Doctor today. I just–" The waitress came back just in time for Kael to strike the table and shake the entire diner.

"None of that either," she said as she handed Joshua a grease-stained white crumpled bag. "I'll kick you out just as like."

As their host ebbed back into the kitchen, Joshua stood up and inched closer to his brother before leaning in. "Listen, I'll get back at it once I've had some sleep. We'll find this guy yet. In the meantime, don't go blowing anybody up."

"Not if they don't deserve it," Kael mumbled back, but Joshua was already out the door.

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Einhurst was already in an area that might be called "the weeds". Yet if the weeds could have their own weeds, then a slapdash homestead a mile and a half outside of town was just that. A rusted trailer sat on three acres of land to the north. It was right on that line where the trees started growing, separating civilization and the wild. The trailer could hardly be called in the forest, but no one was going to claim it as part of town either.

There was no bus Kael could take, and he hardly felt like hitchhiking. No cabs in a place like this even if he felt inclined. So he walked.

"Howdy."

Just as Kael skirted past the outskirts of town, he looked down the cleft between two farm embankments to see a ruddy-faced boy bundled up in cheap store-bought warmery from the large discount chain.

"Hey," Kael said, before walking onwards, the kid quickly following on his heels.

"You going back to see Mr. Ward? You said you would today."

"You got it," Kael said, smiling and offering a thumbs up. "You did say he lived alone. Your intel still good?"

"Sure. He's never been so much as married. People can't stand the coot."

"Then I'm still going. He wasn't alone last time. I'm sure of that." Kael wrinkled his nose looking up at the sky. No snow meant low steam this morning, which would make it both easier to see and be seen. "Unless you've heard something else. . . ."

"About that medical fella'? Nah."

"I'm not even sure if he's that type of doctor."

"But you said your mum needed him to live."

Kael just about rolled his ankle on a large piece of loose gravel on the side of the road. "Good memory. And it's, uh, complicated."

"Complicated like how?"

"You going to follow me the entire way, or you gonna go to school or something?"

"It's Harvest Day. Only day this time of year we actually get off. Religious holidays in the summer and all that." The kid got pulled to the side as a car whizzed by. "Anyhow, if I got school, you got school. No way you're an adult yet."

"Never went to school," Kael sighed. "I've enjoyed investigating your neighbors with you, but are you really going to follow me all the way there? He almost shot me last time."

"I heard. Everyone talks about it."

"Who's everyone?

"Everyone, everyone." The kid was now in front walking backwards. "Mr. Ward is in town almost every night getting sloshed at the bar. So everyone knows everything."

Kael said, "They know everything I don't need to know, that is. So are you coming or not? I'm not going to shoo you away, but you have to promise to keep a secret. We're going to be sneaky, but if we're found out, I will. . . .'' Kael stooped low in that baren lea and lowered his voice to a whisper, "have to do some magic."

"Nah. You're having a go at me now."

Kael tried his best not to smile. "Head back, and ask around again. If you can find info on Bartholomew, I'll double what I was offering."

"Double what you were offering yesterday, or double what you were offering last week."

"Double what I was offering three seconds ago. You find this guy, and I'll give you whatever you want. Now git." Kael twisted the boy by the shoulders and pointed him back towards town. The kid scampered off with a distinct gusto to his steps, his feet nearly kicking him in the rear as he ran full speed.

As the boy disappeared into the ever so slight haze of steam from the surrounding farmland, Kael doubled his pace and made for his target. Joshua might think chasing after the biggest news was the way to discover information, but Kael knew better. Any group of people had outsiders who didn't get to take part but still knew everything: children, homeless, the drunk tank skunks. They'd always give you the real news.

Evergreens dotted the murky countryside in green little pinpricks, and tent-pole trees stood stark with never growing foliage. It was the latter that bore the jagged scars of repeated lightning strikes. Kael turned down from the craggy country road and stepped over a link of chain spanning two lonely steel rods. In theory, this lonely structure marked a side road. In practice, Kael stomped down a path of mud where grass should be with a double line of tire tracks tearing through that.

Now he was on the alert. Kael strained his eyes and ears. Typically he'd use his powers as well, sending the waves of energy like pinpricks to feel about, but in such an open space, he could see further than he could use his powers.

Distance was one of the three main pillars of his powers, of all Syches' powers. Distance, material, amount. The further out, greater quantity, and less purity a substance, then the more mental focus and power that took. Material was a tricky one for both Combustion Syches (like Kael) and Lightning Syces since they didn't control an element of physical material. It wasn't only important to know if a rock he wanted to blow up was half iron, because his powers could interact totally different with fifty percent. Metal Syches on the other hand would only care how much metal was in the rock.

Or maybe different kinds of metal together would be a problem? That sounded like a Joshua question.

The one hard and fast rule, and perhaps the most important, was that Syches couldn't affect humans directly. So if he stretched out with raw energy looking for material to control and found a void, that was a human. Couple days ago, Kael was close enough to Ward's trailer to feel a human inside. And it was precisely at that point where he was forced to stare down the double barrels of a shotgun by none other than Ward himself.

Man outside, mystery man inside. Working theory.

Lost in thought but always alert, Kael's feet stopped. He had moved far enough beyond a large tent pole tree to see behind it, and the sight caught his breath. His hands slowly rose in the air as he subtly angled himself towards the new danger. Ward sat in a lawn chair behind the tree, that infernal shotgun pointing squarely at Kael's chest.

He held it loosely, in the other hand a beer can. Wasnt' his first this morning based on that distant expression. Kael's fingers twitched and his mouth moved slightly, looking not at Ward but at the dirt between them– 20 feet. Material: dirt. Little under half of that would be minerals, a third air he wouldn't both trying to work with, and the rest would be water. At least he wouldn't have to worry about it being frozen.

"Were you waiting for me?" Kael asked, more curiosity in his tone than anything else.

"I heard you were coming."

"Heard from whom?"

"People talk."

"So I've heard. How about you lower the gun and we can carry on the tradition."

Ward ignored that. "Getting a little bothered by you, boy. Try and rob me once–" he paused to take an awkward sip of his beer.

Kael waited, but apparently Ward was done talking. "I told you last time, I'm looking for someone. I have no interest in robbing you."

"I told you last time, ain't nobody here."

"See, I know that's a lie, hence the impasse. I know someone was in your trailer. Maybe there still is. And what I'm doing is too important to ignore that possibility." Kael stretched out with his mind, drawing the energy he put forth into a line through the frozen earth to where the man stood. It snapped like a taut string and Kael held it there. The act created a faint line of pressure through his head as he held that connection of energy in his mind.

"I'd keep saying people talk," Ward began, "but no one is talking about my business. No one around here knows or cares what I do, so I'm going to ask you one last time, how could you know that someone's been in my place?"

The gun shook now, and Kael eyed the man's finger hovering over the trigger wracked with tremors. He focused on that faint line of energy he shot through the dirt. Had to keep that in focus no matter what. Unlike Ward, Kael's hands remained eerily still. His eyes stayed fixed on the horizon and unwavering.

"Making me real nervous with that gun," Kael said.

"I don't give a–" The man's finger twitched.

The faintest spark of orange ran through Kael's heel and into the ground. Disappearing from sight but zipping through the path that had been prepared.

The world ripped itself apart in heat and fury. A maelstrom of dirt and rocks and brown erupted into the air where Ward had stood. A particular noise which could only be described as ear-drum-bleeding-loudness ricocheted throughout the countryside, and for a fraction of a second, the morning mists retreated. And as the dirt came tumbling down in specks and earthen clods, Kael umbrellaed himself with an arm, feeling the hail of dirt pelt his chest and hair with inoffensive patters. As the instant of pandemonium subsided, Kael relaxed himself and began dusting off.

He surveyed the scene with satisfaction. He had seeded the explosion further down and kept it contained. Ward was blown away by nothing but the shockwave of dirt.

Kael found the shotgun lying under a large rock ten feet away. He couldn't be sure, but he distinctly remembered a second little pop during the explosion. That would have been an unfortunate way to go, a stray bullet ricocheting. Kael hoisted the gun with one hand and sent spasms of orange energy through it that netted around and encased the weapon. Then he chucked it as far as he possibly could and watched as it exploded in neon hues in the air. He listened for a second pop but it never came. That meant that Ward actually got a shot off, wherever it had gone.

Kael found Ward. The drunk lay in a clump under a layer of burnt Earth, his arms strung across his body like he was hugging himself. Kael nudged him with his foot, turning the man over fully on his back and giving him adequate room to breathe. And breath he did, in painful, wheezing rasps. Kael didn't know when he'd be conscious again but it didn't matter. He wouldn't be up and walking around any time soon regardless.

"Serves you right," Kael said, making a rude gesture with his second, fourth, and fifth fingers. "Stay here and think about things." He looked down the imprint of a road and resumed his march to Ward's trailer. "I know I shouldn't expect anything, but I'm prepared to get my hopes up."

 

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