CHAPTER 28

  It hadn't changed, the world beneath the wall. Terrifying beyond all reason, and moist.

  Tek scavenged. Sarge and Kiyo knew he did it inside the wall. They didn’t know that he did it outside. Illegal and stupid, but Tek made decent extra money selling what he found. Travelers always dropped stuff in the valley.

  Ran never busted him. Tek was strong. Why punish him for being awesome?

  Often Tek poked Ran to come, assured him that he’d explored the passage at length for years, that there were only two openings. "Only the smell sucks.”

  The smell, though, Ran thought as he slid down the moldy, blocky face of a stony something. Warm, but somehow chilling yet. Piss acrid, moldy like puss. A lanced boil must smell like this.

  Every so often his feet or knees or butt would bump something, and he’d have to pause to walk over or around it. The first few times it had taken a breath to banish the most gruesome and eldritch imaginings, but now he tumbled and glanced off of walls to be quickly free of the dark.

  How long had he been here? At least ten minutes, he didn’t think more than twenty. Could he trust his mind? When he’d closed his eyes, the sun reined high. When he’d opened them, he was on his back in the tunnel.

  Maybe not so bad, being a nut.

  A gust of air against his face in the black, and Ran’s heart jumped. With renewed vigor, he pressed forward until his starved eyes discerned a a few perpendicular lines. Squealing, he pushed away from the wall and ran, tripped, ignoring the pain in his knee, clawed for the exit.

  Finally, cold, fresh air filled his chest, and he could just barely see the outline of his hand by a what was now a square of dim, blue light. The board Tek used to seal the entrance. Ran crashed into it, ripped the spring tensioners Tek rigged up, he was a genius when he wanted to be, and stumbled into a world of silver and shadow.

  He stood uneasily, and looked ahead to see a narrow corridor, a wall on one side and a row of large pillars opening to black night on the other. Silently he replaced the board, which was in fact quite large and thick, and considered blocking it, but could find nothing to so do.

  Despite having just crawled through complete darkness, Ran hesitated. He was outside the wall. Wailers.

  "Too far to quit,” he said as he moved along the corridor. There was no where for him to go back to. The silver light mixed with the shadows as he went, and their spiral made him think of two long hands with two sets of long, closing fingers.

  He read too much.

  When Ran stepped out from the corner column it was right into the full force and face of Nameless’ cloudless, broken, beaming half-moon. He stared into the mess of floating rock, started to count them. What would it look like unruined? A glassy sphere. Perfect.

  By the great lesser light Ran could see almost all of the ancient amphitheater ruins below.

  The day Tek had brought him through, once he’d convinced the kid he wasn’t a wailer or a First and that he badly, badly needed help, he’d not had the chance to closely examine them. Now he saw it wasn’t a Given amphitheater at all. One side still supported a decaying roof by even greater pillars, the other had caved in long ago. In the dark against the moon it looked like half a set of broken, giant teeth.

  Across the field were littered many rows of large stones. Not long like the pillars, but clearly designed to support a long since rotted floor.

  Not an amphitheater, but an Ovoni stadium! Or, at least, what someone might build had they never actually seen an Ovoni stadium, but had read or heard about one.

  At some point the crisscrossing alleys between rocks would have been where the actors moved. Of course, before that, in ancient Ovon, they had been for other entertainment.

  "Shaking liars,” he said, not himself sure to whom he was referring.

  None of that mattered. He was out of Wordheal. Now he had only to find her.

  He coughed lightly a few times, and even risked a weak whistle.

  Nothing.

  "Damn it.”

  It was full dark. Hours after when he should have arrived. She might think I ditched her. Or that I’m dead. What then? He hugged himself, shivered. She might be dead. There had to have been a lot of people hurt badly today.

  Hoping she was down in the field, he scurried down three levels of uneven steps until he stood on the cool grass between the small columns of stones.

  Trade my heart to Blind for a flashlight, he thought. As it was the cloudless sky allowed the half-moon’s full brilliance to provide a confusing, soupy fog-like dim that rebounded of the white ruins. Unbidden came a Kingsong: "Night and Day, Rokk, you penned both, and neither holds surprise for you.”

  Not wholly useless, then.

  He began walking the maze, gently calling out every minute or so.

  The longer he walked, the more the shadows about him seemed to pulse, as if he were at the center of a dark heartbeat.

  Was that a child giggling? He turned, arms thrown up.

  Nothing.

  On he walked.

  After five or so minutes, as he turned a corner heading for the southern gate. Was he trembling? Was he so afraid? Was the dark so bad? Dark hides things, after all. He needed to be hidden.

  Further, faster, he thought he thought and he wondered if his thoughts usually felt so bleak.

  Deeper, deeper.

  Every step brought a sense of safety, of liberation. He felt a smile pull at his lips.

  OH, WON’T THESE SHAKING SHAKERS QUIT!

  "What?” Ran said and stopped, patted the side of his head. It was then he turned to the side, and froze.

  Fritz stood in the next intersection between pillars, looking for all the world as surprised to see him. In her hand she held an absurdly large sword with a nasty serrated edge as he might a popsicle.

  Fritz’s eyes flitted to the sword, back. "I know this might look like I’m waiting to gut you, but I really just came here to get my swo--"

  Ran screamed, and ran.

  -----------------------------------

  "Oy. Give me a break!” E bounded over the stone the kid ran around, landing in front of him in a rush of curling green bubbles . "I’m not going to hurt you, damn it!”

  Ran’s face twisted, he looked at beauty.

  "Yeah. Well, yeah. . . Let’s restart. My real name’s E, well, Ealsaid, but I go by E. I’m from First. Ah, damn it!”

  He had run again. She slapped beauty to her back and followed him around a corner, careful to use as little shine as possible. The kid was fast, though.

  "Ra--"

  The blade missed. She heard its hiss. Turnned her head just in time to watch it sail past her face by inches. The foot, though, that caught her square in the jaw, the upward angle forcing her neck one way as her legs continued after Ran. She spun, crashed into one of the short columns, which was ripped from the ground like a dandelion.

  E spit the dust from her mouth, looked upside down at her enemy. "That hurt a lot. You mad?”

  Rina held a struggling Ran behind her, her short sword pointing at E, and blue dust twirled around her.

  Rina used her sword to point at her own jaw. Yep. That's where E'd got her.

  "Fair enough.” E flipped to a crouch, pulled beauty, poured shine into its edge until it rippled with bright green waves. "Nice butterknife.”

  "It’s not--”

  "Might as well be.”

  "The maw are you people?!” Ran screeched.

  "Hush now,” Rina snapped, "watch your language.”

  "She’s right, shut it.”

  "Don’t talk to him that way!”

  "You just told him to shut up!”

  "I told him to hush. I was kind.”

  "'Hush’ is just the old lady way of saying 'shut it’”.

  "You’re nuts!” Ran cried.

  E wanted desperately to make a joke about women. Didn't.

  "I’ll take him to Sebu, you’ll never see us again.” Rina’s eyes could cut diamonds.

  "Well,” E swung beauty with an impossibly quick stroke that whistled in the air, "the thing about that is this: No, and I’ll never see you again.”

  "You said before that you didn’t want to kill me. I don’t want to kill you either, Fritz.”

  "Name’s E,” she grabbed beauty’s hilt with both hands and held it sideways. Mist defense. Firm in fingers. Relaxed in wrists. "You couldn’t kill me if you tried.”

  Rina couldn’t hide all of the hurt, and it made E angry. Ah, you bitch! she thought. Be angry at me! Want to kill me! C’mon, you don’t really care. We talked for what, like an hour? A couple hours. . .like two people. Frien. . . Idiot. Deluding yourself into thinking you could have a friend. Shake it! She wasn’t hiding the hurt on her face either. That made E angrier still, so she rolled her eyes, "I don’t really want to kill you either." The words echoed around them. "Ok?"

  Rina smiled, "Odd woman.”

  "Shut up."

  "If circumstances had been different. . .”

  "Me too. Life sucks.”

  Wind passed through the stadium, over stone walls and across stone floors. E’s green, Rina’s blue, the walls around danced with the color of their lives.

  "So,” Ran cut in, "uh, will you at least let me go while you guys stare at each other or. . .what?”

  "When did you become so chatty?’ asked E.

  Ran suddenly let out a dry cough, grabbed for his throat. He doesn’t know why! E realized.

  Rina's eyes began circling the room.

  "Of course, he’s here too,” E moaned. "It’s ok kid. Stop coughing, you’re not gonna clear anything cause it’s not your throat. It’s shine.”

  "I’ve faced this one before.”

  "Doi,” E slapped her forehead with beauty’s flat. "We both have. Ow.”

  "Nail?” Ran asked.

  "You’re too powerful a shiner to ignore, kid.”

  Ran’s eyes widened. "I’m not a shiner. That’s what this is about? You all think. . . I’m a shiner? ME?!”

  Rina gently turned him to face her. "Why do you think I am here?”

  "You’re nuts. . .uh, you’re a women?”

  E chuckled, "How you think you got out of Wordheal today? Magic?”

  Ran tried to speak. Apparently could not.

  "In any event,” said Rina to E, "this isn’t Nail. His is blunt, pressing, hard as iron. This is fog. Are your senses so dull?”

  "Woooow,” E lowed, "you can be a real bitch when you want. I like it.” She exploded forward in emerald, closed the gap in a blink.

  Rina cast Ran aside, moved her blade with precision. Even still, it barely caught beauty’s downward slash. Blue and green dust and droplets erupted off of ringing skeel, and Rina fell to one knee from the sheer power.

  Rina’s free left hand shot up to her face and curled into a fist. It wasn’t her bag, but E knew a concentration pose. Big rashin incoming. But that took time...E disengaged beauty, took a step back, planted beauty in the ground behind her for and anchor, and roundhouse kicked Rina in the side as hard as she could.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Raven-hair spiraled through the air, spinning magnificently, unbelievably, and Rina brought her hand back up to her face, mid-air, almost upside down, once more. Blue surged above E’s ocean just as Rina let out a great breath and a line of stunning blue poured from her mouth, through her fist and into the ground at E’s feet.

  E watched the woman land. "Cool?” She shouldn’t be enjoying this. "Pretty, but ya missed.”

  Rina smiled, cracked her neck.

  The ground shook.

  "Ah,” said E, springing away. The ground shot up where she’d been.

  E barely had time to see Nail and the other boy, Tek, grab Ran before, all around her, the ground between the pillars exploded upward like jets in a water-fountain.

  She dodged the first three, jumping from pillar to pillar, but the last one erupted into her, and she and Rina both shot into the air on rising platforms. "Now this? This is much cooler!”

  ------------------------------------

  Nail pushed Ran behind the monolith before gazing, cautiously, around it. Fritz, or E, had seen him.

  "Tek?” Ran’s speech was slow.

  "They drug you or something?" The small boy smacked his brother repeatedly. Well wake up! You need to see this!” Tek poked around the other side of the monolith. Nail pulled him back. "Awesome!”

  "A shiner,” said Ran. "The think I’m a shaking shiner.”

  "Language, lad.”

  "That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard!” cried Tek. "But I believe it! You teleported today!”

  "Teleported?”

  "Just like the day I found you, only then it was just light.” Tek looked to Nail. "The maw’s wrong with him?”

  Nail popped them both with flicks to foreheads. "Language. Shine is weaponized life. The first few times one uses it can be. . .overwhelming.”

  Above them resounded thunderclaps. E’s joke of a massive ostentatious sword clashing against Rina’s.

  "How did you find me?” Ran asked with more lucidity.

  "Tek led me to the opening beneath the wall - it was the only way he'd show me - But I caught the Sebess’. . . Rina’s track, fairly quickly. She followed the redhead. Neither are cautious any longer.”

  "We jumped the wall. I was on his back. DUDE!”

  Nail sucked air through his teeth, Your poor mother.” Nail couldn’t blame them. He would do as much and more for his brother, and they’d not spoken in years.

  "You’ve got your sword,” said Ran.

  Nail glanced down at the curved scabbard. "Despite my rashness earlier, I am not indestructible, lad.”

  "Are you going to hurt them?”

  Nail nodded, but gently.

  "I wish you wouldn’t.”

  Nail glanced once more around the monolith. The women fought as they jumped from stone to stone, some of which exploded like kindling in a popping fire, some of which dissolved into ash or else shot yet higher. "I. . .they’re both powerful, no, very powerful, Ran. I can’t get you back to your family without at least disabling them both.” A disguised lie in quick speech and thought. Nail couldn’t stop until they were well away from the twin cities. His power with narokks? Never! He’d send for Ran’s family once they arrived at terrible, holy Mirror. There were Given in Mirror.

  "Why are you after me?”

  "I’m not after you Ran. I’m your friend. One, in mercy, saw to that. I’m to protect you. But you are special. Something they, and I suspect others yet unrevealed, want.” Ran shook his head at the word "special” and seemed to fold into himself. To Tek, Nail said, "Take him. Back into the city. Try to steer toward the rim of this, this, whatever this place is. Go!”

  The younger, taking a last longing look at the battling, groaned, grabbed the elder’s arm, and dashed into shadow.

  Nail took a deep breath, unsheathed his sword, wrapped the long end of his scarf around his arm to tie it beneath his brace, battle fashion. Then he called his sun, pumping shine from his sun into every muscle, every bone, every cell, until he blazed yellow. He stepped out.

  Immediately a ball of green struck his chest, exploded, but it was nothing for him to leap through the pressure and heat to land on top of one of the tall stones, looking down at the narokk and up to the Sebess, With him they formed a triangle of about twenty feet to each point.

  "One-trick, narokk?” Nail tapped his chest.

  "Put one up your--”

  Rina rolled her eyes, tried talking over E. "Can we, at the very least, please agree to try to have an honorable, silent combat to death?”

  "--yeah, I bet you'd blow up then!"

  Nail sized them. E: An angry enemy is a stupid one. Sirk loved that one. This woman’s ferocity, however, only seemed to sharpen her. Still she screamed obscenities! Her rashin was unique, perfectly suited to her shine’s nature. How long can I defend when she can do so much damage over so wide an area so quickly? From distance, no less?

  Rina: whose sword floated menacingly between them. Elegant shinmardu mastery, for Nail could see no cuts or bruises, save one on her face left suspiciously in place, as both he and E sported from earlier. Her rashin didn’t register against his gauge. Shinasshu of such quality he could think only, Marvelous. If E’s technique was novel to Nail, Rina’s was ineffable. She turned stone into mush and molded the ground as if it were clay, and not a bit wasted! She barely bled shine. Nail couldn’t help but recall a certain story about Heir, the greatest reed excepting Confirmer himself.

  Nail smiled, he hoped peacefully. "No blood tonight, ladies.”

  E pointed to a small cut just below her eye, "Too late.”

  Nail felt his jaw clench. "I meant no one need die.”

  "No one ever need die. Take that up with your silly rokkae. I’ll do whatever I have to.”

  "The ends don’t always justify the means.”

  "For my city? Ya. They do.”

  "I have a city too, and a people!” shouted Rina.

  "Go back!” E returned. "Both of ya! Then no one will die for sure!”

  Nail sighed, "And I thought the Given were arrogant.” Before either woman could react he dropped a massive complement of shine into his left fist and then Nail Starson brought it to the ground like a great golden hammer. Roar, One’s Clarion!

  ---------------------------------------

  Marginally conscious of being led through the maze, Ran took the opportunity to catch up on his own life. Fritz, no, E! From First! She knew what my throat means!

  His whole body quivered. E knew something about him. . .

  The ground rumbled, shaking dust from the stone around them. A massive crack like a great fork of lightening erupted up the stands to the right, continued up the wall and across what was left of the remaining roof. Nail!

  "SO AWESOME BUT WE COULD DIE!” Tek nearly pulled Ran’s shoulder out as he turned a corner. "We’re outta here!”

  "The hole’s back there!” Ran cried.

  "Holes all over the place! You just gotta look!”

  "What? Wailers could have got into the city!”

  "You’re worried about that!? NOW?! Let’s just get back!”

  Back? Ran thought. To what?

  ------------------------------

  Rina cleared the dust cloud kicked up by the Rockman, landed in the middle of the stands. He’d cracked the stadium like an egg. Barely a flick.

  "Cackling Rokk,” she cursed. All shine bequeathed strength and speed, overlaying muscle and bone as gold did wood. Rina reread Nail's vitals. Steady. Fixed. As if her were the fulcrum of the world. At the cellular level, he should be melting.

  The sword ran her through, then. From behind. She looked down. Curved. Slowly she turned her head to find Nail, head downcast, eyes hidden by his hair, ashamed. That was nice. It would have been nicer had he not skewered her.

  "Didn’t. . .” she rasped, ". . .hear. . .”

  "I’m sorry.”

  "Son of a bitch!” E screamed from somewhere.

  Rina smiled. The woman sounded genuinely upset.

  "It was not my choice!”

  "You won’t stab me in the back! Coward!”

  Rina giggled, and its echo in the silence was so creepy she shivered. She amazed herself with her own theatrics at times. "You guys talk too much.” In the duel vision that was her present mind, shared between the golem and her body, Rina closed in behind E. The golem she made stared down at the tip of Nail’s sword. To move fast enough her precision, attention to detail, in construction and shinasshu were less than her standard. Both were at their limit. I can use that too, she thought.

  Nail must have felt the change, the shine seeping from the dirt that was the golem, for he tried to withdraw his blade. Rina made the golem throw Doe of the Dawn straight at E’s heart, and then bent its arms back the wrong way to seize the Rockman.

  Slowly, if only for flair, Rina turned the golem’s head until it faced Nail.

  "One and Only,” said Nail, "what are you?”

  Behind E, the real Rina whispered, "Tricky,” and then caught the thrown Doe the redhead had just dodged and sliced viciously at E’s back, her golem disintegrating.

  Amazingly, impossibly, E had feinted to the left at the last blink to draw Rina’s strike off just enough. Rina cursed as shine-coated skeel cleaved a glowing cerulean line through the stone steps as if they were butter.

  E was amazing.

  E brought her monster-blade around in a horizontal cut, but Rina had had more than enough time to set her feet, duck, wrap her arms around E’s as it passed, and use their combined momentum to send E flying. The redhead crashed right into a still shocked Nail.

  "That was really mean!” E whined, and bounced away from the Rockman. "You looked like you died!”

  "My Breath of Life and Death,” Rina grinned.

  E responded with her own. "Gran was right. Can’t trust a Sebi.”

  -----------------------------------

  The many grooves along beauty’s serrated edge began to glow as green shine trailed across them like tears down a cheek. They gathered, bunched up in rows in the reservoirs until the whole length of the sword glowed.

  E swung the greatsword like a bat, and the tears were flung into the air.

  Nail and Rina bounced across the room as the beads, to their shock, shot after them, seeking foreign shine. "You need shorter names for rashin!” E called. "Deluge!

  Every shine has a weakness, Strauss always said. Don’t try to develop perfect techniques. That’s amateur hour. Do what you do well and then watch what your enemy does well.

  Nail landed, having just dodged the last of her rashin, at the far end of the stadium with an infuriatingly serene self-assurance. He’s not being cocky, E thought. He just doesn’t worry about injury. That simple. Somehow, he could burn unthinkable amounts of shine just on shielding his body’s cellular structure entire, all while cracking rocks like dirt. Healing as he’s attacking? If I had more time... E glanced at her gauge, growled to find her ocean dulling. I don’t.

  Bad.

  She shifted to Rina.

  Worse.

  She turned concrete to mush by breathing and built people from. . .what? Dust?! When the maw had she done that!? When Nail attacked. "You switched places in the dust cloud. On the move.”

  "Asking?” Rina called, and she took a large breath.

  "You’re both damn impressive!”

  Their skeel swords and shine sparked across the stadium as they chased one another in a macabre playtime.

  With each stroke, each parry, each maneuver, E became more conscious of her pocket, and how it was her only hope.

  ----------------------------------------

  Ran did not know what he wanted, only what he didn’t. It would wound them all. He, Kiyo, Sarge, Pym. . . Tek. Maybe he could get them back someday. Maybe not.

  But something had to change.

  In the dark distance he could barely discern one of the decrepit stairs he’d seen from the stands. He tore away, sprinting for them. Tek barely had time to yelp.

  Earlier that night the moonlight alone had been enough to mislead, now it was mixed with yellow, green and blue, and all the world seemed to spiral around him, trying to trip him up. One knows. One of them can help. Whichever sees me first. Whichever gets to me first.

  On hands and knees, he climbed the stairs, summiting just as Nail flew overhead, crashing into one of the few great pillars left holding up the remaining roof. Everything trembled as a giant hunk of ceiling crashed mere feet from him. Ran whimpered, "I’m such an. . ..”

  "IDIOT!” Tek screamed as he crashed into his back. The boys watched as Rina and E flew through the air, rebounding off the ground as if weightless, swords flashing.

  Again Rina let out a great stream of sparkling blue dust that shot toward E, who spun, hit the ground in a roll, here a green flash erupted from her, and then launched herself up again, a green bolt exploding at the top of the pillar Nail had crashed into. The pillar crumbled, folding like a piece of paper into two large chunks that crashed down into the base Nail was buried in.

  Tek coughed. "I thought these guys wanted you not dead?”

  E landed to face Rina again, but she must have noticed the same awed look on Rina’s face, because she turned to follow her gaze.

  Nail walked calmly forward, sword in one hand, the larger of the two hunks the pillar had split into, at least thirty feet, balanced perfectly above his head in the other.

  "Bullshit!” screamed E.

  The Rockman drew back his arm and threw the pillar like a spear.

  Ran had the sense of what it must feel like to stand next to a RIR, the skeel trains the red eyes were so proud of, as it passed over him.

  E had time only to throw herself on her back, watch the pillar slide inches from her face. once her red hair calmed, she said, "Wow.”

  On Rina it bore down. She jumped backward, flipping her sword down, clapped her hands together on its hilt, closed her eyes, and loosed a mighty cloud of sparkling breath that coated the pillar. It dissipated, just in time, as blue fog curling all around her.

  Before Rina had time to reset, E attacked, swinging that giant sword in wide, powerful arcs. Nail was not far behind. A fantastic calm spread through Ran as he watched, and he could see it all, not as if they became slow, but as if his eyes got faster.

  It was only due to this focus that he noticed E trying to reach into her pocket, only to be thwarted by an attack. Nail had caught on as well, for he finally grabbed for her wrist and tried to spin her to the ground. E dropped her sword and did a cartwheeled in Nail’s grip. Once right side up her palm was filled with green shine aimed at Nail’s face. He knocked her hand away.

  The ball was sent spinning through the air, straight at Ran and Tek.

  Tek screamed, and Ran looked down at him.

  The three shiner’s cries melded into one as Ran uselessly cried, "Teleport! Teleport!”

  A bright stream of red, and he knew he was dead. Blood. Tek’s blood. Man did his throat ache.

  Then Tek landed on top of him, screaming curses.

  "Ow. Why aren’t we dead?”

  Ran sat up. The platform upon which they’d stood had collapsed to one side, dropping them several feet, well below the green ball that now spun harmlessly over them, exploded on the far wall.

  ---------------------------------------

  The battle must have destabilized the platform. Only explanation.

  Certainly, E hadn't done anything, apart from nearly killing them, again. Glorified guard dog. Weapon. Only for killing. Your temper, E.

  Nail looked at her, fear and rage chasing like the sun and moon across his face, before bringing his curved sword around to gut her.

  She hated herself too, but what else was new?

  Besides, it gave her an opening.

  E swept beauty to parry, an oh what a parry!. The singular motion, momentum to spin away, grab the orb from her pocket, press the switch, drop the shaking thing.

  E jumped away, l landed right next to the kids.

  "Now,” she grabbed Ran’s arm, "y--" She'd done something wrong. She felt it in the light across her back. A wrong sort of light. Was it affecting her gauge?

  "Durrr crap,” she sputtered before turning once again to Ran, "you’re coming –"

  "I’ll go!”

  "Eh?” she muttered as Tek punched at her, pried at the arm holding his brother.

  "I’ll go with you as long as you don’t do anything to Tek.”

  Weapon. Defective weapon. Dangerous, defective weapon. "I wouldn’t hurt Tek.”

  "Or them.”

  E looked. She shouldn't have. Rina lay on her back, long black hair splashed across and around her. But she was breathing!

  Blue dust poured from her body as if she were an hourglass with a crack. It twisted away on the wind.

  The Rockman was on one knee, conscious, but with fluttering eyes. Yellow shine sputtered around him, and E thought of the last coal of a fire that refused to die. He tried to stand, faltered, fell onto his sword. Didn’t get him clean. A great spark erupted above his head. Didn’t do him any favors, either.

  Flashlights were suddenly everywhere. Lines of them. Around the corridors and hidden hallways of the stadium. Orders were screamed. Guard.

  E looked at Ran. Back at Nail, whose frame radiated hate for her.

  "You hurt them,” Ran said resolutely, "I’ll fight you. Every step. I won’t win, but I’ll slow you down.”

  E looked at her gauge. So dim. The ocean nearing dead calm. "Rokk-pillar-shakers.”

  "I want to go, E,” Ran said emphatically.

  "No!” Tek cried.

  "Nail! Please, I'm begging you! Take my brother out of here!!”

  The Rockman wobbled like a drunk.

  "Fine!” E hissed. "Fine. Don’t blame me if the Wordhealers kill them!” She pushed Tek away, forcing herself to not look at him, and then turned, and sprinted, sent bubbles flying as she jumped.

  --------------------------------------------

  Ran saw Nail scoop Tek up before they mounted the lip of the stadium’s ruined roof.

  Then they were falling, he and E. Hit the ground. Weedy stones gave way to grassy field as the air rushed around him. E was moving as fast as a hansom on the freeway.

  Halfway across the valley, he saw a ball of yellow light bounce over the city wall, and he sighed. The kid had to be alright. Nail had got him. Had to.

  The lights of Wordheal began to shrink, blinking out as they descended the valley. He looked ahead, where the lights from First grew larger and larger.