Remember More

Chapter 33

REMEMBER MORE

CHAPTER 33

In the middle of the night, John woke. He thought he heard something.

Originally, he had planned on staying awake until Zhang fell asleep, and then he would sneak out and have a look around. But what with all the work he had done in the day, he found that he was completely exhausted and had managed to nod off the second his head had hit the pillow. And now this.

John shifted about. He eased to sit up where he was, on some bedding they had set up on the floor beside the kitchen. To keep the breeze flowing in through the night, they had left the front door open. John turned his head to stare out the door just now, focusing his gaze into the distance, toward the deep of the forest and what he thought must have been the source of the noise that he had heard earlier and had woken him up.

It was still raining outside. Not much in the way of wind, but the downpour was steady, heavy.

He stood up. He stole his way over to the door and reached out his hand to lean on the frame. Checking over his shoulder, he saw that Yan was just sitting up in the bed too, now rubbing her eyes and yawning. He checked in the other corner of the house. His bedding was messed up, but Zhang was nowhere to be seen.

Yan edged in behind John. "What's going on? Where's Zhang?" She had noticed it too.

John shrugged.

It happened again. The noise.

John indicated the distance. "What do you think that is?"

Yan furrowed her brow. "Sounds kind of like thunder."

"Without lightning?" He shook his head. "I've heard of lightning without thunder, but the other way around?"

And then again.

"Come on." John went to put his shirt back on. "I'm going to check this out."

~~~

The thunderous booms continued to sound and they followed it. They could tell they were getting closer. It was getting louder.

By this time, it had stopped raining. They were about two miles away from the house, back in the direction of the school but still in the bush, still in the thickest part of the forest on this side of the mountain. Getting here was easy, as John had loaned out his qi again to Yan so they could run more quickly. In parts, when the bush had become too dense, the two would even take to the air and soar just above the treetops for short bouts.

Yan was getting better at manoeuvring the qi given her and John was getting better at presenting it. Now that they had more time with it, they found that this sharing of power actually required some skill, as it turned out, and was not as simple as it would first appear. In order for the transfer to flow more efficiently, there needed to be a system, a silent understanding between the two, a groove that the both of them needed to feel and fall into. They needed to work as one.

They neared the source of the noise. They dropped back to ground level, stayed low and approached quietly. An edge to a clearing was just coming up. John and Yan eased up to this. They dropped to a crouch and peeped out.

~~~

The clearing was about a hundred yards square. Near one end of this, on the far side was a huge rock, about thirty feet around.

There was an old man sitting on top of the rock, completely at ease, half smiling, leaning back and supporting himself with one hand while swinging one of his short legs over the edge of his perch, back and forth and back again in rhythm. With his free hand, he was fighting off an attacker twice his size, one with not a hint of a smile on his face at all whatsoever.