The Ashen Healer

Chapter 4

The world was a blur of spinning colors. Yellow light. Grey stone. Blue sky.

Evans did not know where he was. He only knew pain. His head throbbed. It felt like a drum was beating inside his skull. Boom. Boom. Boom.

He tried to move his hands. He could not. Rough ropes bit into his wrists. He tried to move his legs. They were heavy, like lead. He looked down. His ankles were tied together with a glowing blue rope. It was a Spirit Bind. It stopped him from moving. It stopped him from fighting.

He was not walking. He was floating. Beneath him, a flat, wooden board hummed with energy. It was a transport talisman, a flying stretcher used for cargo or prisoners. Evans was the cargo.

"Are we there yet?" a voice grumbled. It came from the front.

Evans turned his head. The movement made him dizzy. He saw two backs. Two men in the grey and green uniforms of the Clan Enforcers.

The man on the left was tall. He controlled the floating talisman with one hand. The man on the right was shorter, with a thick neck and a bald head.

"Quit whining, Baret," the tall one said. "We have to go past the border markers."

"Why?" Baret asked. He kicked a loose stone as he walked. "He is crippled. His Dantian is broken. We could drop him in a ditch five miles back. He would die just the same."

"Orders are orders," the tall one said. "The Elders said 'The Red Wastes.' So, we go to the Red Wastes."

Evans felt a cold shiver. The Red Wastes.

Every child in the clan knew stories about the Red Wastes. It was a place where nothing grew. The air was thin. The beasts were hungry. And the Qi—the energy of the world—was twisted there. It was a graveyard for the unwanted.

Evans tried to speak. His throat was dry, like sandpaper. "Water..." he croaked.

Baret turned around. He had a cruel face. His eyes were small and dark. He grinned, showing yellow teeth.

"Look, Garin. The cargo is awake," Baret said.

Garin, the tall one, did not look back. "Ignore him. We are close."

The landscape changed. The green trees of the clan lands were gone. The grass disappeared. The ground turned hard and rocky. The color of the earth shifted from brown to a deep, angry red. It looked like the ground had been soaked in blood for a thousand years.

The wind picked up. It howled through the rocks. It sounded like a woman screaming.

"This place gives me the creeps," Baret muttered. "Let’s drop him here. This is far enough."

Garin stopped walking. The floating board stopped too. Evans hung in the air, three feet off the ground.

"Check the distance," Garin said.

Baret pulled a small compass from his pocket. He looked at it, then nodded. "Twenty miles from the Gate. No regular human can walk twenty miles in this terrain. Not without food. Not without water."

"Good," Garin said. He turned to face Evans. His face was blank. He did not look angry. He just looked bored. "Well, Evans. This is your new home."

Evans stared at him. He wanted to shout. He wanted to curse them. He wanted to ask why. But he had no strength.

"Please," Evans whispered. "My hands. Untie... my hands."

Baret laughed. It was a barking, ugly sound. "He wants to be comfortable while he dies! Isn't that sweet?"

"Untie him," Garin said.

Baret stopped laughing. "What? Why?"

"If we leave him tied up, it looks like murder," Garin said calmly. "If we untie him, it looks like 'Exile.' The Elders want to keep their hands clean. If he dies from the cold or a beast, that is nature’s fault. Not ours."

Baret grumbled, but he walked over. He grabbed the front of Evans’s torn shirt. He pulled a knife.

Slash.

The Spirit Bind on Evans's legs fell away.

Slash.

The ropes on his wrists snapped.

Evans’s arms flopped down. They were numb. He could not feel his fingers.

"Get up," Baret said.

Evans tried. He pushed against the wooden board. His muscles shook. He managed to sit up. The world spun again. He saw the edge of a cliff nearby. A steep, rocky slope went down into a canyon of red dust.

"Time to go," Baret said.

He did not wait for Evans to stand. Baret lifted his boot and kicked the wooden board.

The board tipped over.

Evans fell.

He hit the red ground hard. Thud. The air left his lungs. He rolled. The ground was not flat. It was a slope covered in sharp stones.

He tumbled down. Shoulders hit rocks. Knees scraped against gravel. He tried to grab something, anything, but his hands were too weak. The world was a mess of red dust and blue sky.

He rolled for a long time. Finally, he slammed into a large boulder. The impact jarred his teeth. He lay there, gasping for air. His body screamed in pain.

From high above, he heard a voice.

"Here!"

Something heavy hit the ground near him. A canvas bag. It bounced and slid further down the hill, stopping ten feet away.

"Good luck, trash!" Baret shouted.

Evans looked up. He was far down the slope now. At the top of the cliff, two small figures stood against the sun.

He heard a low hum. The sound of the transport talisman powering down. Or perhaps, the sound of a barrier closing.

Click.

It was a sound he felt in his chest. The Clan Marker on his chest—the invisible seal that allowed him to enter the city—shattered. He felt a pinch in his heart.

He was disconnected.

The two figures turned and walked away. They did not look back.

Evans was alone.