Hope in Ruins Book III: The Fountain and the City of Salt

Chapter 11: Shooting, Falling, Dying Stars

ANDA

The ground shuddered as the kiln crashed into the earth, and dirt and rocks and frozen sticks rained down on them. Anda kept her balance but stumbled.

"Go, run," Seth said and pointed towards the trees.

They staggered away from the kiln towards the wood, but a whistle and whoosh brought another kiln down in front of them. It slammed into the cold earth, and Anda stumbled. The kiln's metal casing fell away with a rush of steam and light and shadow. Anda wondered why they did not hear the ship approach but realized that the wind and the clouds had concealed them.

"Back, that way," Ben said and pushed her away from the kilns.

But each way they turned, a kiln fell, blocking their escape and sending them back towards the gravestones until they were surrounded. Trapped in the little graveyard, four kilns, smoking and glowing and shedding their metal casings, circled them. The last metal panel fell like a burning petal, and the four kilns stood glowing and shining and shimmering in the dust and fog of night. The now bright and bare kilns revealed a young man, a boy, and two older women. Sensors and wires ringed their heads like crowns, and their thin and gaunt bodies showed through their gauzy white robes. And their eyes glowed.

Their eyes all shimmered deep pinky-purple. Except the smaller of the old women: her eyes glowed bright blue-green, bright like deep, shimmering water in the noonday sun.

Ben shoved Anda behind him, and she tripped over a gravestone and fell to her knees. Eli stumbled and collapsed over a small grave. A book tumbled from his jacket.

"No, no, no!" Eli cried and scrambled for the book, grabbing at it and stuffing it into his jacket, and holding it close. He huddled next to her in the dirt, clutching that book under his coat and laughing hysterically. Anda wondered which trapped soul was laughing. But there was no time to wonder while Human Elements surrounded them: they would have to fight their way out.

The loose dirt around them began to tremble and rise from the earth around the young man's kiln nearest the ruins of the farmhouse. Sparks flickered and snapped from the little boy's kiln near the trees, the dry trees. Flashes emanated and pulsed from magenta-eyed old women's kiln directly in front of Anda. The teal-eyed woman stayed still, but that frightened Anda most.

From deep inside Eli, his voice hard and deep, the nameless one said, "telekinetic.... Electrokinetic.... Oh... that one's fun." He pointed to the old woman with the pinky-purple eyes. "And what do you do?" the nameless one asked, looking at the teal-eyed woman.

The teal-eyed woman's gaze flicked to Anda and—

A wave of nausea and disorientation overwhelmed her, and she was standing. She felt... exhausted. Her limbs ached, her legs were unsteady, her hands throbbed with some unfamiliar pain. Age, she felt so old and tired and hungry, so very, very hungry. She stared at the other sparking kiln with the magenta-eyed woman and—

Then everything tilted and rushed and she was back on the ground. Dirt and rock bit into her palms. Her belly lurched as if she had been moving much too fast and then slammed to a standstill.

Seth stumbled but caught himself.

Ben looked from Seth to Anda as Seth mumbled something Anda couldn't hear.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Sensory manipulator," Seth said, pointing to the bright, blue-eyed woman. He rubbed his palms and winced as if at some old remembered pain. "She can swap your senses with someone else's, as she did mine and Anda's. She can make you see and feel what someone else is seeing and feeling. Don't trust your own senses—she can manipulate them."