Chapter 12 - Missing

“Ness, wake up.”

…

“Ness, come on!”

The voice was urgent, quiet, and right next to her ear.

Ness groaned exhaustedly, and tried to roll away from it.

“Okay,” the voice said, softly, more to itself than to Ness. “I tried.”

Fingers touched Ness’s cheek softly, and a split second later a tingling rush of energy surged through her body. She arched her back away from the cot, and would have moaned loudly except that the fingers immediately disappeared and someone shoved a bundle of cloth against her face to stifle the sound.

She was wide awake, then, and realized that Mira had been the voice trying to rouse her; she was not sure for how long. She was trembling.

The previous day’s spell-casting had been exhausting, but in a different way for Ness than it was for Mira. The first time Mira had cast a spell with Ness as her familiar, she had been reduced to a shaking mess. That no longer happened, but now the rush of energy was like an uncontrolled build-up leading to the same— until it hit a brick wall. Ness was increasingly desperate to move past that wall. She had fallen asleep fantasizing about pressing her body against Mira’s, skin to skin, and feeling the power surge through her entire being.

Ness thought that if she could ever get some genuine privacy and just the smallest amount of comfort she’d be able to manage the situation herself, but both privacy and comfort were hard to find while spending day after day trekking through the woods.

She was breathing heavily, eyes glassy from the awakening. She was also exhausted, and no light shone in through the poorly-fitted doors and shutters of the barracks. It was some time in the middle of the night, and she had no way to discern when.

“Fuck, Mira.”

She kept her voice down- Mira’s actions had made it clear that she was trying to keep a low profile.

“Come on. Outside.” Mira gestured toward the door.

They had slept in their traveling clothes, Ness using her cloak as a blanket; she only had to pull her boots on and tie the laces, which she could easily manage in the dark.

Moments later, the two stood near the palisade wall, still whispering to avoid drawing attention.

“I woke for the watch¹—”

Ness tilted her head in confusion at this, but waved it away, and gestured for Mira to continue.

“—and Mictlan was gone. Something doesn’t feel right. Even if he felt his contract fulfilled, why wouldn’t he wait until morning?”

Ness shrugged. She had only the slightest understanding of Mictlan’s gestural language, and the man was deaf, and had no chance of understanding her, even if they shared common language. She knew nothing about the man.

“You said the rest of the way is safe. Maybe he just wanted to get home?”

Mira frowned in consternation.

“No, no. I don’t like this. We need to find him.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me. He was hired help, right? Nobody snatched him out of the barracks in the middle of the night. He left because he wanted to leave.”

Mira’s mouth twisted to the side in the dim light. She looked annoyed, and slightly guilty.

“The forest villagers wouldn’t help us save you without a fair trade…”

Ness raised an eyebrow, barely visible in the dim light. She waited for Mira to go on.

“Mictlan traded them one of his swords, for these.”

Mira tapped her iron bracers together softly.

Ness had noticed that Mictlan was down to one sword when she had, clumsily, asked him to spar the prior day. She didn’t share enough language with him to ask where it went, and had forgotten it the next time she and Mira were in conversation.

“Okay? That was nice of him. What does that have to do with him going home?”

“No, not nice. He demanded I give him a boon in exchange for that fucking sword. He has my blood token.”

Mira spoke the final statement as though it would explain everything. Ness just blinked at her.

“So? I guess that’s important?”

Mira made a frustrated sound; Ness was not sure if the sorceress was frustrated at her for not knowing, or frustrated at herself for forgetting how little Ness knew about this world.

“A blood token is… like a magical string, tied to me. Or a chain. It’s a symbol of a promise, but not just a symbol. It represents power over me. Connection to me.”

“And he has it, and you don’t trust him?”

“I did trust him, before he snuck away in the night.”

“Okay, okay. Maybe it has nothing to do with the boon?”

“It doesn’t matter; I have to get the blood token back, and that either means honoring the boon or taking it back some other way, which I really don’t want to do, but either way, I can’t do that if he disappears into the world.”

“Okaaaay, uhm. Alright. Well, maybe the guards can help?”

“What? No. They’re only here to deter bandits from raiding trade caravans. They barely even let us through the gates.”

“So, what, then?”

“We have to go after him.”

“We? I’m not.. an adventurer, Mira. A soldier. Whatever. I write Javascript.”

Mira ignored the unfamiliar term.

“Ness, leaving aside the fact that I need you, the blood token isn’t just power over me. You’re my familiar, you’re connected to me. The token could be used to harm you just as easily as me.”

“I don’t imagine you’ll let me sleep for another four or five hours,” Ness asked, her voice only faintly hopeful.

Mira just frowned at her.

“Yeah, yeah. I didn’t think so. Can we at least get a cup of coffee here somewhere?”

“What is cough-y?”

“Oh, goddess fuck me sideways with a damned pitchfork.”

They stood just outside the palisade wall. The guards on watch had been annoyed that their gambling had been interrupted by the two women wanting to leave in the middle of the night, but their job was to keep people out, not in.

Mira gently cupped the side of Ness’s face with her hand. They stared into each other’s eyes while Mira spoke the words of the spell.

“Bend grass, that soles o’er ground fly quick and true

“Turn stone and stick aside, our path bend not askew

“Flow breath through lung and blood of life through limb

“My prey, we seek, scent track’d, moon’s light un-dim.”

Ness was almost, almost, starting to get used to the rush she felt when Mira touched her to channel magic. She pressed her lips together to avoid the — frankly, sexual — moans that would have come out otherwise. She knew it would only last a few seconds.

Mira drew her hand away— and Ness immediately something felt wrong. The tingling flood of energy did not recede like it normally did.

“Oh fuck, Mira. Fuck.” She couldn’t keep the pleading out of her voice.

Ness’s eyes were wide, and she was panting. She felt desperate, needy. She felt like—

“Fuck. Fuck. Please, Mira, it’s not— it’s—”

Ness shoved the thought away; this was neither the time nor the place, much less in the company of this sorceress from another dimension that was one step, if that, away from hating her.

“It’s the spell. It traps energy in us, so that we can catch up. You’ll feel better when you’re moving. It’ll wear off.”

With great effort, Ness forced her thoughts back to the present, and forced her eyes away from the shape of Mira’s lips as the woman spoke. She did not need to be thinking about the way the corners of her mouth curved gently upward when the sorceress smiled.

“I..” Ness sniffed the air. “I can smell him? Can we go? I want to run. I need to run. Mira—”

“Let’s go.”

They set off running, and Ness did indeed feel better. The energy seemed to slowly filter out of her as she moved. She felt like her legs were spring-loaded, and each footfall was perfectly balanced. The way she moved over the terrain felt like a dream, almost like flying.

She was not sure if she was imagining the way the foliage bent out of her way and allowed her to pass. She found running like this incredibly calming— the rhythmic thump of her boots on what felt and sounded like packed earth; her breathing was steady and even, barely elevated above resting; and her heart was pumping about twice every second, a perfect beat to dance to.

That bitch gave me the zoomies, Ness realized, some time during their second hour of running.

She was amused. Running felt good; and it was not just Mictlan’s scent she could smell. The trees and flowers and small animals all made themselves known, too, and she was beset by an urge — which she ignored with no small expenditure of willpower — to smell them all.