Call to Mission: Heart of the Splicer 1

Call To Mission

  By Elena Snowfield

  Published by Publications Circulations LLC.

  SmashWords Edition

  All contents copyright (C) 2014 by Publications Circulations LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  One

  SWEAT POURED from Sophie's forehead as the threadbare sack slipped from her loose grip to glide away from the balcony like a dark sail over the oblivious performers below. Her young fingers reached for it momentarily, but she lost her balance and had to cling to the talons of the gargoyle to keep from toppling over the stonework balustrade, straight to the center of the action!

  As she nervously pressed her messy dark hair back, she watched the sack descend upon the performers with the violent speed of the wind. These strong gusts have been assailing her at that height, atop the ancient architecture of the bell tower for the past hour. She held her breath and tightly seized the gargoyle's rugged wing.

  In a perimeter around the eastern face of the building, a crowd had gathered to watch the performers from her trade school display their feats of power. Soon, the sack would either collide with one of her fellow students or with an innocent bystander. She begged for the wind to carry it away from the people and to save her from the embarrassment that was sure to follow. But of course, the wind refused her pleas. A rogue gust had to twist the cloth that emptied some of the damp leaves from inside until its contents cascaded down upon the onlookers. A volley of debris was unleashed.

  Sophie cringed. Why her? Or better yet, why her again?

  Sophie Audler had not come to her trade school, the Ether Edifice, for the same reason that attracted the rest of the crowd today. The spectacle planned for the tourists below would truly be a magnificent display of her peoples' culture-a way of life that taught its community to graft energies together through their spirits and minds, just like scion and stock.

  But she was here to work, not to entertain or to show people the beauty of her field of study because of the simple reason that she sucked at it. She had failed./div>

  Illoso, her mentor in splicing mystical energies, had given her this task of collecting leaves from the highest points on the gargantuan building and packing them away into the sack. She was surprised at how many leaves had managed to scale to that height, but the strength and unpredictability of the wind around the Ether Edifice explained how much work she still had to do.

  Illoso had told her that the landmark had to be so pristine that it would never fail to impress the visitors with the same staggering glory that they must have heard about from other splicers, who had traveled to find these outsiders and bring them to this wondrous site.

  Nonetheless, it was a thankless job, and as she watched the sack drifting headlong toward the audience with the weight of the few soaked leaves still in its bowels. She knew then that she had failed even this simple duty. Failure in her classwork had gotten her this job, and now her punishment would probably escalate to something much worse.

  She held her breath as the sack she had accidentally dropped veered away from the crowd. But then it finally found a target among the performers. Sophie's eyes widened at its imminent impact.

  But just as the leaves were about to burst on the head of one of the performers, an emerald light appeared around the man, and the cloth shattered like an explosion of brittle pottery, each shred illuminated with the same greenish glow until they dispersed into the air and safely arced away from the audience.

  The crowd clapped and cheered at this unexpected display of mystical pageantry. She saw Illoso looked up at her through the green aura surrounding his body and she couldn't help but smile in sheer relief! He shook his head and returned to his performance.

  So Sophie groaned as she sagged around the gargoyle.

  Illoso would never let her become a real splicer now!

  WITHIN THE shelf of the tower that Illoso called home, he wiped the sweat from the corners of his eyes and glanced at his watch.

  Hours had passed since the performance, and now the different families and groups of people who had made the pilgrimage to the Ether Edifice began to take their first steps back home.

  Now was the most critical time to speak to these people.

  He had organized this entire event so the splicers could form stronger ties with the surrounding towns. It would mean more resources, more order, and most importantly, more protection against the legions of bandits haunting the wilderness between their distant communities.

  The time had come to send splicers to visit the homelands of these travelers. He had to get to the central platform of the Ether Edifice to begin the selection process.

  Illoso stepped off the balcony toward the hollow center of the tower without hesitation or concern for the one-hundred-foot drop below him. The splicer's pace did not slow as yet another foot left the solid slate behind him, and his weight shifted fully onto the empty air as if he were trying to leap down to the murk of the shadowy tower depths.

  Gravity seized him, and for a brief moment, he was falling into the void.

  Then Illoso flattened his hand and spread his fingers until he felt a subtle ripple in the very air beneath his palm. His plummet slowed to a gentle descent, and the emerald glow that often surrounded him came over his body.

  Looking down, he could see the other splicers.

  They appeared as a myriad of green and gray wisps, speckling the depths and bursting in brilliant concussions of spectral light and muffled booms. After each explosion, the denizens of the tower were propelled from one side of the structure to another and then faded from sight in a trail of ghostly afterglow.

  He smiled, felt their energies meld with his, and then focused until his aura erupted in its own dazzling flood of illumination.

  The overloaded color spectrum flashed violently in front of his eyes as he felt a vacuum form where his aura had burst. He could neither see nor breathe for a moment, suspended there in space while he channeled the direction of the blast downward. He had only enough time for his eyes to readjust when suddenly, he was flying up and diagonally crossing the circumference of the tower.

  The smoky scent of his incinerated energy soon replaced itself with the crisp air of the higher levels of the Ether Edifice. He barreled into the face of a wall just above the threshold of another splicer's home, his knees bent and toes repositioned on the gritty surface until he leapt back out toward the center of the tower as he began to emanate green light again.

  After only two more bursts, he landed on the platform that hung by chains that crisscrossed the gap and ascended toward the highest reaches of the splicers' home. It swayed on the chains ever so slightly from the impact of his arrival but then stabilized, and Illoso stood motionless as he waited for the very best splicers in the Ether Edifice to arrive.

  But then, one of the chains leading up the tower began to rattle, and with a sigh, Illoso acknowledged that it was certainly no elite splicer who was approaching.

  Two

  SOPHIE SLID DOWN the lengthy web of chains to the central platform, feeling each link slip through her fingers. Everything in her peripheries blurred from her velocity. She could feel traces of tears beginning to form
in her eyes, and the familiar scent of old metal on her hands overwhelmed her senses when she wiped a sleeve across her damp eyes.

  It was too dark below to see much, but the central platform appeared empty of anyone who might punish her for using the chains as transportation-a rule the splicers-in-training were specifically told not to break.

  And a rule that Sophie broke nearly every day.

  Despite the rule and how dangerous her travel of choice surely was, she thrived on the risk involved and the way it always felt like she was just on the verge of losing control without ever actually going that far.

  She liked the smooth texture of the chains and how they were so strong but could still be twisted and coiled to fit so many needs. That kind of strength was a rare thing to find in a tower of stony gargoyles -- and rigid people who she often imagined was criticizing her because she simply didn't have the power to travel with aura bursts.

  Hers was much weaker, dimmer, and marked by the gray color that meant she was still new to splicing. That shortcoming was a constant source of embarrassment to her, and even thinking of it now made her playful descent less enjoyable.

  Suddenly, and just within four stories of the platform, she saw Illoso. She frantically tried to stop herself. She gripped the chain tightly and felt the friction burning into her palms. The metal tore at her hands, and finally she had to let go of the chain two storeys above the platform.

  She braced herself and clenched her hands into balls of white knuckles in the air, awaiting the impact. She bent her knees, and as her toes began to connect with the stone, she kicked her legs out together and threw herself across the slate.

  She rolled gracefully to the edge where she teetered for just a moment and then found her balance, successfully stable on both feet with no real damage except the abrasions on her hands. She hid her pain. No one was allowed to doubt her abilities in those areas. Climbing and hiding my pain are my best skills, she thought, sometimes bitterly.

  "Sophie Audler," Illoso said. "Still doing things a little differently than we taught you, I see. There are stairs lining the walls of the tower, you know?"

  She put her hands in her pockets to hide the wounds. "Sorry, Illoso. I just thought it would be faster."

  He smiled as if he possessed the greatest patience on Earth and approached her, taking her by the forearms and pulling her hands out to examine the damage. "I suppose falling is faster than you can really handle though, yes?" he asked gently.

  "Yes, Illoso," Sophie mumbled.

  By then, another student coasted up from below and landed on the platform, his green glow slowly dissipating in his wake. Sophie recognized him right away. It was Logan, a guy from her class of initiates. He brushed his sleeves off where dust had gathered on him in his ascent. The young man and her mentor exchanged looks.

  "Ah, Logan," Illoso said, "glad to see you aren't worn out from the performance. I have a task specifically for you."

  Illoso released Sophie's arms and patted her on the shoulder. But a sense of worry still troubled her about what he would do since she had nearly hit him with the sack of leaves during the performance. It was a relief that he seemed distracted for now. But she knew that wouldn't be for very long.

  He looked back upon her once with a clenched jaw and stoic blue eyes behind the veil of his graying hair -- which made her heart stop beating or a second -- and then pointed over to the edge of the platform.

  "Sit down over there, please," Illoso said to her, and she obeyed, wondering what task Logan would receive. Normally, she only saw her mentor giving jobs to troublemakers like herself. But Logan was anything but a troublemaker.

  He was Illoso's star pupil - a true natural among their class with an aura that had turned green before any of the other students' gray hazes had even began to hint at an emerald hue. She had always been somewhat jealous of him for that, but at the same time she admired him, though she would never admit such a thing.

  "Listen closely, Logan," Illoso said. He breathed deeply and stared down. Logan stood tall and motionless, his chest rising and lowering steadily. Illoso seemed confident in his student's demeanor, and so he continued. "I'm sending you with one of the groups who came to the performance today. I want you to learn about their home, engage in their culture, and try to show them a thing or two about ours."

  Logan's eyebrows shot up. "But, sir-"

  Illoso cut him off. "I know you're still relatively new to the tower. The Ether Edifice has been your home for only, what, two years?"

  "Three, sir."

  "Ah, yes. Three quick years, I'm sure. Nonetheless, I think you're ready to start showing people that we're not a bunch of maniacs and hermits in some cold, lifeless tower. The conditions are getting worse out in the country sides. And bandits know winter is fast approaching. They won't be able to find as many victims on the roads as they did just months ago, so I'm expecting that they're going to target the people who came to see our performance." Illoso paused for a moment as if he was waiting for this to sink in. "It is our duty to give these villagers a sense of security. We have accountability toward everyone we come in contact with. Do you understand?"

  Sophie watched Logan nod, and she thought about that accountability. She wondered if that was how Illoso saw his relationship with her. Maybe he was so patient with her and only punished her with jobs where she worked alone because he was trying to protect her from other students in the same way that Logan was supposed to protect these villagers from the bandits.

  She appreciated his concerns, but at some point, Illoso's sympathy began to feel like pity to her. Just the thought of how little he must have thought of her made a lump rise in her throat, and her mouth was so dry that she had to stifle the urge to cough.

  Sophie decided to sneak away at that point. She would go down beyond the shelf where her room was in the tower, beyond the bottom of the tower, and then just leave altogether.

  She had to leave. It was already hard to know that she did not belong to this place for being such a failure. It was worse to get pitied for it and become someone's burden to protect.

  Three

  SOPHIE'S FEET CAME out in front of her, and she scooted herself back toward the chains that could offer her the only possible escape route. Her other ear remained listening to Illoso as he gave his instructions to Logan.

  "I want you to leave immediately," Illoso said. "Take a few minutes to pack lightly and then go with the group headed to the village of Dioled. They're the farthest from our tower and will most likely need your protection. When you make it there, start splicing energy with them. Show them how powerful we all are when united."

  Sophie backed away a few more inches. She should go back to her room now and prepare for her leaving, too. The tower would be dark in an hour for now. That should be enough time for her to get ready to escape.

  Logan was staring at his shoes. She could see his mouth moving just barely enough to be noticed, as if he were trying to decide exactly how to say the next part of whatever he needed to say.

  Then Logan spoke up. "What if they don't let me show them what we can do? I can't bind energy or even get my aura to show up if I'm alone."

  Illoso rubbed his grizzled chin. Sophie could hear his fingernails scraping through the coarse hair as he said, "So, you don't think you'll be convincing enough to find anyone who has enough energy for you to splice together with yours? You don't think you can make them feel that power within them?"

  Logan pursed his lips sideways. "I don't know," he said. "I was raised with stories about the Ether Edifice and the splicers. I've always believed in it, but I've never tried to convince anyone else about it."

  "It's not like you've never been outside the tower or never tried to persuade someone about something before."

  "I may not have always lived here," Logan said, "but my mind has always been on this place. My life is a part of it as much as the gargoyles are."

  Sophie had just begun to relax her knees to swing her legs out where she could na
vigate down the chain when she felt a tug on her shirt. Her momentum drove her legs up until she was suddenly parallel with the floor of the platform and falling on her back.

  "Well, Logan," Illoso said, "I guess I'll just have to send someone with you who has never sat still long enough to be part of anything."

  She collapsed abruptly against the stone. The drum-like sound of her torso reverberating against the floor sounded to her like those endless thuds she could hear all day when other splicers made their auras burst.

  That is probably the closest I will ever get to mimicking the sound of successful splicing, she dismally thought. And here she was, not only flattened and defeated, but also probably in trouble once again.

  And then she realized what she had just heard Illoso say, and she turned to them both with bulging eyes.

  Illoso let out a wheeze of laughter. His face was shaded - a silhouette against the light from above - but she still thought that she saw him wink.

  ________________________________________

  AT FIRST, Sophie didn't think that Logan was serious. But the two of them were on the road within minutes of the conversation.

  "There is no need to pack much," Illoso had told them."If you do your job well, the people will take care of you much better than you could take care of yourself."

  So far, though, neither Sophie nor Logan had even seen a trace of the villagers from Dioled whom they were supposed to aid.

  "Do you think they might have just decided to turn back and stay at the tower for the night? What if we missed them?" Sophie asked.

  "We didn't. Trust me."

  Sophie's face turned red and she wasn't sure if she was more mad or embarrassed at that point. She was certain, however, that Logan was being rude on purpose. He must have thought so little of her - this failure of a student who couldn't even make her aura burst properly -- that she couldn't believe he didn't feel anything but loathing for being saddled with someone like her.