Totem Chapter 9: Wise And Inscrutable Mentor (Patreon)

Two more Deformed had tried to break into the room before the incursion was over.

It was hair-raising as hell, even though I had managed to drive them off. I’m pretty sure I killed one of them, but it's hard to say for sure as it staggered away, half burnt and screaming.

I was shaking with nerves and pretty much in a flop sweat by the time the ‘all clear’ horn sounded. But my heart soared with a sense of triumph. I didn't know how my mom and her sister alligators managed to fight even more Deformed regularly. No wonder my mom was so strong.

Distant celebration bells and the blat of horns from the village beyond signaled the end of the invasion. Sure enough, Father and his workmen broke out of the safe room. I soon heard his thundering footsteps through the house.

“Seth!” Dad broke through the bedroom door and stopped short, mouth open in horror at seeing me out of the safe room pit he had put me in, and then fur bristling when he spotted Ash Mountainrage.

“He's okay,” I told him quickly. “This is Ash. He helped save my life. Dad, Annika is hurt.” I gestured to the bed where the girl lay, still bundled up like a mummy and utterly still.

My father let out a low growl at Ash, but then stepped to the side to overlook the girl.

“She needs a healer,” he said flatly as if the “healers” around here weren’t the type to spit in an open wound to keep out “bad spirits”. I wouldn't let those wackos come anywhere near me and had once gone as far as to sew up my own leg that got gashed. It hadn't healed pretty, with a nasty, jagged scar. But I didn't lose the leg.

Ash spoke up, his voice deep. “If you forgive me for saying, I think her injuries would be better suited to be healed in one of the cities.”

Ha. I knew I liked the guy.

My dad whirled on him. “And you are?”

“I just introduced him…” I muttered. It seemed Dad was back to treating me like a kid again.

“I am Ash Mountainrage, a wandering instructor from Talison City. Your son, Seth, is talented, and his totem is quite unique,” he said.

“His totem…” my dad repeated, then looked at me intently. “But I don't see any divine marks.”

“There is more than one way to cultivate,” Ash said. “Surely, you have heard this?”

My dad's eyes flicked to the side, a tell. Instead of answering, he went for the door and roared for one of the workers to find Annika's mother.

In a town of our size, everyone knew everyone else, so he quickly received a few “Yes sir's” in response.

Dad turned back to Ash. “You have my thanks for helping to protect my son and the girl. Please, consider yourself a welcome guest, and are invited to eat with our family.” The words were formally spoken. Our culture was big on formal guesting laws, which meant that my dad was saying Ash would be safe under his roof and he would protect him like one of his own. Considering that Dad's whole thing was the protection of his family, that was a big deal.

Ash bowed in a way that wouldn't look too off-putting from some of the city-dome in Asia. “I would be happy to take you up on your hospitality."

****

After that, I was kicked out of my house to do the basic chores that came after incursions. The Deformed had not managed to breach the house, despite the banging on some of the shutters, but they had made a mess outside.

I was to unlock the shutters, note which ones needed to be replaced, and help with initial damage surveys. It looked like the creatures had gotten into one of our storage barns. In fact, one of the Deformed had defecated in the grain.

I really hated them.

Nevertheless, the whole thing was kind of surreal. I had cleaned up after the Deformed more times than I could count over the years. Now, I felt different.

Even though people around me didn't treat me any differently – to them I was still Seth, the boss's son. I was different. For example, some energy still lingered from the bodies of the Deformed.

Closing my eyes as I helped lift them into the bonfire that we used to dispose of them, I mentally fanned the inner energy towards my core.

My goose totem slurped it up like a greedy little shit. However, the energy was thin, as if the most potent had already escaped the corpses. The bodies which were stiff with rigor mortis had no energy left at all.

Useless, even in death.

I had just finished that gruesome task when a scream rang out from my house. I exchanged looks with the workers, then ran up there to see what was going on… though I suspected I already knew.

My fears were confirmed when I walked into my room and found my mother holding a half-collapsed, sobbing woman in her arms: Annika's mother.

She had a kingfisher totem, and her nose was incredibly sharp with blue feathers up and down her arms and the back of her neck. From her devastation, she had just seen the state of her daughter.

My mother caught my eye and jerked her chin towards the door, indicating that this wasn't a moment to gape at a distraught mother.

I backed out, feeling sick. Annika still lived, but at what cost? Maybe her injuries could be covered up? Or… maybe she’d die after all? Infection took out a lot of people around here.

I wanted to ask someone how she was doing, but I wasn't sure if I had the right -- no, I wasn't going to lie to myself. The fact was, I didn't want to know.

In a way, her injuries were my fault. I should have been firmer with her months ago. I should have told her that I wasn't interested in marriage and that she needed to focus on someone else.

Instead, I'd been too nice, too wishy-washy, and inadvertently led her on. Then she tried to court me, which was a huge no-no in our society.

But Annika, strong-willed as she was, didn’t let things like cultural peer pressure get her down. Now she would likely become one of those horror stories that mothers told their daughters.

Shit, I didn't want to think about it. There was a lot of work to do, but I felt nauseated and kept flashing back to Annika's ruined face when she had been in my arms. There had been too much going on to dwell on it, but… her face was super messed up, and there were no plastic surgeons around.

Staggering away from the house, I found a clearing where I often went when I wanted some time alone to think. I sat down, my head in my hands, and then slowly relaxed and looked inside to see if there were any changes to my core.

The gosling looked the same as it had been the night before, curled up in the center of my being. Its eyes seemed shut, and it looked like it was resting. I had the sense that asking for more energy was not a good idea right now.

Okay, no playing around with new powers to distract myself.

I noticed that new energy flowed around it, orbiting in a slow, diffuse sway. This wasn't the energy from the Deformed. It was from the normal type that I was used to dealing with; bland and sort of yellow, but pure enough.

It felt like second nature to concentrate on condensing it and having it orbit around the core. My Gosling wasn't actively taking any in right now, but there should be a surplus there for when it woke up.

It felt like taking care of one of those e-pets that had been the rage when I was a kid.

"You are cultivating, good... good..."

Ash's rumbling voice immediately broke me out of my half-trance.

I glanced up at him and he nodded. "Tell me, are you processing the energy from the Deformed or the natural energy?"

"I don't know what that second one is," I said, "but it sort of builds up inside me on a daily basis."

"Yes, that is the energy of life, the energy of the world. It is much better for you in the long run. While the Deformed are potent, you do not want to take them in regularly."

"Do you know what the Deformed are?" I asked. This wasn't the first time I had asked a question, and it seemed that everybody in the village had a different idea, depending on their personal superstitions.

But Ash seemed to be much more informed than the average Joe.

He nodded. "When you push too hard and too fast, the totem leaks into the mind. This is not too unusual. But it allows other forces in, and that can create a sickness where there is no cure. The Deformed are not human, and not animal. They are sick and hungry. In the great city of Talison, there are places that can house and educate you on this.”

"A school?"

Holy shit, was this guy my new Hagrid, come to take me to Diagon Alley?

"No," he chuckled. "More like a military. It is a way to learn to fight, to strengthen yourself without necessarily harming yourself. And you can learn to become stronger with your totem, instead of languishing here."

An expression of mild disgust crossed his face, and I got the impression he wasn't taken with my little town.

I was tempted -- hell, who didn't want to go to a magical... military school? But... “My parents need me here,” I said, feeling lame as hell. “There’s the harvest and… they sort of depend on me.”

Ash's reply was kind of brutal. "You're an adult now. It's time to make your own decisions."

I had half a mind to tell him that I had been an adult before, and part of being an adult was making sure you didn't run away from your responsibilities. But, truth be told, I had been kind of a shitty adult the first time.

But Ash was not done. "I have asked around about you. They say these are not your parents by blood. You come from a destroyed town."

"That's the theory," I said.

I was lucky that the people here took pity on me and took me in and hadn’t decided that since I came from a "destroyed town," clearly, I was destined to become a Deformed, too.

Ash looked at me expectantly. "Don't you want to find them? The people who gave birth to you?"

That simple question hit me harder than it should have. Because, hell yeah, I had questions. Not about my “real” parents, of course. I wanted to find out what had brought me here. I was supposed to be a colonist in a brand new, virgin world. In all this time, my memories had not come back from right before I left good old Earth. I had no idea what was going on or why I was here -- why I had returned as a baby of all things.

But I couldn’t explain that to him.

"I don't know what's left after all this time," I said. "Maybe it's best if I just move forward." And by that, I meant so many things. Then, as if the answer had been pulled out of me, I admitted, "But I do want to learn everything I can about my way of cultivation.”

“The pure way,” Ash said, not sounding like a fervent religious convert at all. No siree. "This is the path you walk, and you can step off it at any time."

"What do you mean?"

"It’s easy: You take from your Totem instead of feeding it. It would give you a burst of power, and it is always a temptation. But if you don't – if you resist -- I can assure you the rewards are much greater."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "I will be here over the next few days. Think about what I said, and what you truly want out of this life."

My ears perked. “This life?”

But Ash was already walking away.

He was playing the ‘wise and inscrutable’ mentor hard. I knew it, but… damn. He had me hooked.

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