It took them two weeks to travel down ten stories and north to the next set of greens. Ellen packed an amazing amount of food in the limited time Irene allowed her, but with all the mouths to feed they ran out quickly. Irene killed everything that came anywhere near the group, both for safety and to eat. When they found a public sanitation facility, she made the woman tan the hides. She ordered the most skilled to teach any of their number, including the children, who didn’t know how.
Irene knew how dangerous it was, especially for children, to eat only meat. When they reached the next green, Irene ordered the woman to gather tubers for two days, while she kept overwatch. She killed over thirty squirrels, five boars, two cats and a bear. The woman looked at her with fear in their eyes. For once Irene didn’t try to ease it. She felt like a villain. She used that fear to keep everyone in line as they marched.
When she thought there was enough food gathered to last at least a week, she drove the group to the far southwest corner of the green, where the square Irene saw weeks ago still waited. The high crystal looked unchanged. She paid for nine rooms in the inn for six days each. She rented a room for herself for only a single night. The cost consumed a large portion of the coins she received for killing all those animals along the way.
Irene came down early the next morning to find Ellen looking longingly at the sealed door to the kitchens.
“I forgot where we are,” Ellen said, pulling herself together at Irene’s arrival. “I woke from a dream where I was in Kyle’s inn and he was waiting for me in the kitchen to start cooking breakfast.”
“Give me your hand,” Irene said to Ellen. Ellen held her hand out with a puzzled look on her face. Irene set a single oxidized bronze coin in it. The coin was worth 36 silver or 1296 iron coins. Ellen couldn’t believe so much wealth was resting in her hand. “Put it all on the inn rent,” Irene said, with a gesture to the service bar.
“Really?” Ellen said, clearly shocked. “Don’t you want to rent it yourself?”
“No,” Irene responded. “Kyle would want you to have complete control of the inn.” The mention of Ellen's dead spouse convinced her. She ran her hand across the service counter and set the coin down onto the counter top. There was a small light display and the coin was gone. Ellen stepped around the counter and pushed the door to the kitchen open.
“After breakfast I want everyone to report to the training yards,” Irene told Ellen.
“Everyone?” Ellen asked. “Who is going to watch the children?”
“Bring the children too,” Irene said. “They count as part of everyone.” Irene stepped out of the inn and made her way out into the green. She searched for straight lengths of wood with about the same diameter as her walking stick.
She spent nearly seventeen days with this group of weak defenseless women. She reached her limit days ago. There was no way she was putting up with it any longer.
She found a good candidate and reached for her knife, only to find it still missing. A shudder ran through her, half revulsion and half grief. She pushed all that emotion down. She snapped the wood off with a force tap delivered with a well aimed blow of her staff.
She found ten of them before returning back to the training yards. She waited impatiently for the woman to report. They trailed out slowly, ushering their children before them. When they all settled down around where Irene stood before a targeting dummy. Irene counted the woman and came up one short.
“Who is missing?” Irene asked.
“Rose just gave birth, she is still recovering,” one of the other women responded.
“We just walked for sixteen days,” Irene said callously. “If she isn’t recovered now she never will be. Go fetch her. Tell her if she isn’t here in five minutes I will ban her from the settlement for life,” Irene declared. The woman who spoke rose to her feet and hurried off in the direction of the inn. “And bring the baby!” Irene called after the woman. Irene wanted no excuses for the woman to hurry off again.
The straggler barely made it in the allotted five minutes. Irene noted that Rose was very beautiful. Under normal circumstances Irene was certain Rose would have wrapped some man around her finger shortly. Irene wondered why Rose decided to follow her. The woman must know her usual methods weren’t going to work on Irene.
The woman Irene sent to fetch Rose was carrying a small infant. Irene thought it was interesting Rose chose not to carry her own child.
“Here I am,” Rose announced, her voice heavy with outrage at being dragged out here. Irene shoved one of the wooden sticks into the woman’s hands.
“I am so glad you volunteered to go first,” Irene announced.
“What is this?” Rose asked with disgust.
“Block my attack,” Irene said. She swung her staff and hit the woman firmly on the shoulder. Rose dropped the stick in her hand and jumped back.
“What the hell!” Rose cried.
“Pick it up,” Irene said.
“No,” Rose cried.
“Your choice,” Irene responded, and swung her staff again. She hit the woman again. The woman jumped back again, she possessed really quick reflexes, but she stumbled on the landing and fell. “Get up,” Irene told her. Irene could see the denial starting to rise to the woman’s lips. Irene began her swing.
“Give me a second,” Rose cried. She grabbed the stick off the ground and rose unsteadily to her feet. Irene gave her a moment to steady herself.
“Block my attack,” Irene said again. This time Rose made an attempt to raise the stick up. Seeing Rose’s action, Irene aimed her blow at the stick and not at Rose herself. Rose managed to not drop the stick under the impact. “Good,” Irene declared. “Now hit me.”
“What?” Rose said shakily.
“Swing that stick and hit me with it!” Irene yelled. “Go on! Hit me!”
Rose made a weak swing in Irene’s general direction. The blow came nowhere near her. Irene didn’t even step back.
“I said hit me,” Irene goaded, taking a step closer.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Rose swung again. Her blow was weak. Irene shifted her staff just slightly catching the blow without any perceived effort.
“Good,” Irene responded. “Now, I want you to tighten your fingers one at a time starting with your pinky.” She held out her hand and mimed the action without holding her staff.
“What?” Rose echoed again.
“Hold that staff out,” Irene ordered. “Tighten your fingers one at a time, starting with your pinky,” she commanded when Rose held the staff in front of her. Irene repeated this instruction two more times before she saw Rose flex her fingers. “Good,” she said, “now squeeze the staff once with all your fingers together.” Rose followed that instruction without Irene needing to repeat it. “Tighten your fingers one at a time again, starting with your pinky,” Irene instructed. “Now hit me,” Irene said when Rose flexed her fingers again.
Rose swung again. Again Irene stopped the blow with little effort.
“Good,” Irene declared. “Do it again. Tighten your fingers one at a time.” Irene ran through the exercise again and again. Rose’s weak attack grew even weaker. Irene thought the first blow she landed on Rose’s shoulder might have been a little heavy. The woman was having problems with it now. Irene didn’t feel sorry for her. Irene knew she was in a very dangerous mood. These women were driving her crazy with their fear and their excuses. Irene could not believe that at one time they all lived in the wildspace suburbs of Chicago. How had they done that and not know how to land a hit?
“What do you want from me?” Rose cried. She stumbled slightly with fatigue and she was the one doing the hitting.
“Again!” Irene demanded. When Rose didn’t respond Irene hit her. Rose was unable to get her stick up in time. “One at a time, all together, one at a time and hit me,” Irene repeated.
Rose swung. Flame raced down the length of Rose’s stick. Her blow gained force, her swing shifted as it gained accuracy. Irene shifted slightly, catching the blow on her own staff. Her higher skill level and tier allowed her to block the imbued blow as easily as Rose’s weak beginner blows.
Irene smiled, it was a cold thing. “Good,” she said to the woman. Irene stepped close to Rose and grabbed ahold of her shoulder. Irene leaned her own staff against her body and cast a tier three heal. Rose screamed as the pain from her injuries doubled, then faded away to nothing. Irene was already stepping away from Rose, her staff back into her hands by the time Rose recovered.
“That is how you imbue fire,” Irene said to the group. The woman and children all watched her beat Rose in shocked silence. It troubled Irene that none of them stepped forward to help their companion. “Pick up your staves and face off with each other. We are not leaving here until you can all do it consistently.” Irene turned back to Rose. “Hit me,” she said to the woman.
Irene taught them all how to imbue fire and ice. She also taught them to throw an ice-bolt and a fireball using the targeting dummies. She told them how to cast shield, fear and the tier one heal. She gave them a stern warning that the heal between the same colors should only be used in the direst of circumstances since its use led to addiction. Even several of the older children managed to learn some of the spells.
Irene let them all go at lunch. She walked back to the outside tables of the inn. Ellen sat down next to her.
“I don’t understand,” Ellen said to Irene.
“Women are always on the bottom here,” Irene said. “It doesn’t have to be that way. The structure makes pregnancy and childbirth completely safe and only a minor impairment. Magic means there is no measurable advantage to size or strength. Agility and quickness is more of an advantage. Look at how fast Rose could jump back from my blows. An untrained man could never match that. Yet Rose whines on and on about how she is recovering from childbirth, when truthfully she was completely healed in a day,”
“What about the children?” Ellen asked.
“What about them?” Irene countered. “You already share childcare duties among the women. Why do men get excluded from it? Don’t they have the same eyes and hands you do to watch their children and keep them out of trouble?”
“They are busy hunting,” Ellen countered.
“Why are they busy hunting? Think about that. Are they busy hunting because women don't help?” Irene gave Ellen a hard look. “When women don't hunt men keep control of the flow of structure coins. As a woman I want to blame men for these developments, but us women are just as responsible. Women are taking advantage of the male instinct to protect their family, sending fathers out into danger. Women are cheating men of the opportunity to spend time with their children and bond with them. What happens when a father dies? How does a mother who never hunted care for her children when there is no man left to bring home food?”
Ellen shifted uncomfortably as she considered that all the women here were huddling in fear in the common room when Irene found them. They were all waiting for a man to come and protect them or kill them. But a man didn’t come, Irene did.
“It is that desperation that leads to women devaluing themselves. Learning to defend yourself doesn’t increase your risk. Not learning it does not make you safe. This is Ellensburg,” Irene said, naming the square, “don’t let anyone take it from you.”
“I am not certain I know how to do that,” Ellen confessed.
“I have one last thing to teach you,” Irene told Ellen. “I never forgave my parents for teaching it to me, but I don’t think I would be alive today if I didn’t learn it. I don’t expect you to forgive me either.”
“What?” Ellen asked.
“Self reliance,” Irene said. She cast a spell. From Ellen’s point of view Irene just vanished. There was the slightest blur on the other side of the table and then that too was gone.
“Irene?” Ellen called. “Irene!” Ellen called louder as the meaning of Irene’s words sank in. There was no response. Irene was already gone. She rose from her seat moments after the cast. She was halfway across the square at Ellen’s first questioning call. She didn’t hear the woman's later more frantic calls as she crossed the training yards and entered the green.
She spent that night high in a tree on the east side of the greenspace. She reflected on how she treated the women of Ellensburg and admitted her harsh treatment of them was driven by her disgust with herself. She kept remembering things, and putting them together. She didn't like herself. She didn't like that she let so much slip. She pushed it all into the back of her mind. She wasn't safe here.
The next day she headed up and south in the direction of the exit. She spent two days looking for The Heights, but didn’t find the suburb. She hoped her friends just moved someplace safer. She remembered she told them to go out to the Speedwell if things got bad.
The exit courtyard was unchanged. The weather felt like late spring. The bright sun and fresh green grass greeted her. She walked up the trail and welcomed the feeling of weakness that overcame her as she stepped past the structure’s area of influence. She paused at the rocks on the top of the ridge to eat the last of her food. She thought about building a small structure here to house a cart. That way she could drive back from here in less than an hour. It took her two days to walk it without food. She ran out of water on the second day and was forced to drink from the irrigation water. Luckily she knew which lines were safe to drink from. The automatic systems were at work, tending the fields. There was no human traffic on any of the roads to give her a ride.
Irene found the airlock doors to the Speedwell sealed. They unlocked smoothly after recognizing her. She climbed down to the power distribution floor and flipped the breakers to the main lifts, the floor that held her apartment and the main galley. The power was still on in the essential systems, engineering and medical. She did a quick check and found that no faults occurred in her absence.
With the lifts now active she rode one up to her apartment level. The floor lights powered on in response to her motion when she stepped out of the elevator car. One light at the far end of the hallway flickered before powering on. Irene made a note to herself to check it later. She opened the manual valves for water flow onto the floor and triggered a system flush and integrity check on the nearby control panel.
The door to her apartment slid open at a touch. The rooms beyond were slightly cool. Irene checked that warm air was coming in through the vents. She set her staff and backpack on the kitchen table before making her way into her childhood room. It was still furnished with two sets of bunk beds designed to hold the four daughters of the house.
Irene crawled up onto the bed that was hers. It was the top bunk to the left. The blankets were old and worn. Irene had a vague thought about stripping out the contents of the apartment and replacing it all with new. She curled up in a ball under the thin fabric. For the first time in three years she felt truly safe. She was also completely alone.
Irene Whitman, Chief Engineer of the generational colony ship Speedwell and a tier five wizard, cried herself to sleep.