Chapter 7 – Life 3 – The Moonlight

As time passed, we culled the Flame Monkeys more thoroughly, to make sure there weren’t any more mutants that popped up. I went on a great many of these hunts, and seemingly, we succeeded. During the off times, I also focused on the White Watcher, trying to absorb wind in the same way I absorbed fire.

I attempted many things. I focused on getting my fire to curve or stay in one place. It didn’t work, for fire always took the path of least resistance. I tried breathing in fire instead of standing inside it. It worked, but I didn’t really notice a difference. I tried training alongside our two greatest air-based warriors, Fatima and her husband. I learned that my fire could be redirected or even extinguished by strong enough winds. This made me even more dedicated to learning how to make light.

At one point, a trio of worms began terrorizing the village. They could emerge from the sand in an instant, swallow a person whole, and go back into the sand like it wasn’t even there. Fatima was swallowed by one, but her quick thinking let her cut her own way out with blades of wind. The second, who had been terrorizing the farmers, was taken out by a trick. A pool of mud, created by the Water-Maker and the Earth Child. It got stuck, literally out of its element, and was roasted to death by me.

The third went into hiding for some time. We thought it had died, until it returned to harass our furthest warriors. It was wary of us, the smartest monster we had yet seen. After losing a powerful Metal wielder (thank the Watchers, not of my family), my father had had enough. Without telling anyone, simply leaving a note behind, he travelled into the desert alone. Following his trail the moment his note was discovered, we found numerous dead monsters… and at the end, was a worm burnt to unrecognizability… along with a human corpse in similar condition.

We were in a state of mourning for many weeks. The Inferno, my father, had died. Despite his increasing age and harsh methods, was still the greatest warrior among us. The knowledge that he could intervene in any truly serious situation had held us all together. Now that he was gone, the fractures started to appear.

Some tried to proclaim me his natural successor. Others mentioned Amir, saying a woman could not lead. Eventually, though, a coalition of people formed who wanted to leave the city altogether. The sandworms, they insisted, could not follow them where there was no sand. I tried to tell people that surely there would be other monsters, ones we might not be able to defeat. Eventually, though, the Water-Maker and his young assistant were convinced to leave. With no-one else with their set of abilities, we had no way to farm without them. So, other than a few holdouts, we all made to leave.

As we had no way of crossing what the old maps called “The Persian Gulf”, we made for the north-west, along the coastline. The goal, apparently, was to stick to the coast, then to the scattered lakes the old maps showed, until we reached the land of Turkiye. I wasn’t sure what we would find there, and it seemed that neither was anyone else, but somehow it had been latched onto as “better than here”, and that’s all anyone really wanted.

We first had to pass through the territory of my old nemeses, the Flame Monkeys. That was when the trouble started. It was Nasir who first saw the lights in the night; he knew to tell me right away. Amir and I prepared as much as we could, told the camp to hold tight, and went on a hunt.

This time there was not a single mutant monkey, but 3. Two of them, including the largest, had the same white streaks running through their fur. The third, the smallest, had brown streaks instead. I briefly hoped it was simply an unfortunate lack of hygiene but then chided myself. No-one had seen these monsters leave waste behind, no matter how much they ate. That meant that this monkey was likely enhanced with the powers of the Brown Watcher. Metal. I had no idea what that meant and didn’t particularly want to find out.

I soon did, anyway. Amir and I coordinated to throw daggers at the two larger monkeys first, fearing their power over the smaller one’s uncertainties. The smaller Light Monkey was hit in the skull, taking it out surprisingly quickly. Amir had perfected his powerful dagger throws since the last encounter. Sadly, that didn’t stop the larger one from quickly realizing what was going on and summoning one of its trademark lights, burning my dagger to ashes.

The metal-infused monkey looked around until the larger Light Monkey pointed at us and howled. Then the brown one looked at us as well. Monsters coordinating like this was mostly unheard of, often they just competed for the kill. Were these mutants smarter as well as stronger?

To my growing horror, the metal monkey concentrated, and suddenly its fur hardened into a gray metal. I had worked with Nasir enough to know what it was: solid steel. On top of that, the Light monkey summoned 5 floating bursts of light. They didn’t move quite as quickly as the ones we had encountered previously, but they were just as unstoppable.

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With silent agreement, Amir went after the Steel Monkey while I went after the Light one. After all, I would have no hope getting through metal armor, and he would likely be burned far worse than I in the light.

For a while, I dodged around the lights while stabbing and slashing and spitting fire at the Light Monkey. That actually seemed to be doing something, until two of the lights suddenly disappeared. I thought for a moment that meant I had won, only to discover the remaining three were moving far faster. Matching their speeds was tricky, but I still got in a good wound on the monkey’s leg. But before I could finish it, the three lights merged into one, far larger and faster than its parts. I was forced to go purely on the defensive.

If I slipped up for even a moment, I knew the light would burn me to a crisp. I needed a finishing move, and I needed it now. I briefly tried to use the Steel Monkey, who was doing a number on Amir, as a shield. Sadly, the light was deft enough to split around the monkey’s ally and reform on the other side. Still, that gave Amir some time to breathe.

During the fight, I glanced up and noticed the White Watcher was just cresting into the sky, replacing the Yellow. If there was any time to learn its secrets… it would be now or never. I split my focus between the deadly light chasing me and the white orb that was, in theory, the source of its power.

I tried, as many times before, to consider what exactly it was I wanted. I wanted power over light, like this monkey had. But wasn’t my power different than that of monsters? Mine was that of absorption and recreation, not that of raw power. This ape could only create lights in the air, but shouldn’t I be able…

Shouldn’t I be able to absorb all the light around me, then shine it out in one spot? That’s what I did with fire, after all, and I could do it better than these two monkeys. Wait. There was one piece of the puzzle that I had been missing. What was it?

The Steel Monkey. It hadn’t used its fire abilities at all. Surely it wasn’t a separate species? It looked so similar to every other flame monkey, it just had brown streaks! But it focused on pummeling Amir with its metal-covered fists, doing nothing with the flames that gave the monkeys their name. Come to think of it, the Light Monkey hadn’t been summoning flames either… I had thought it was simply a matter of the “higher” elements being more powerful than the “base” ones, but…

What if you had to give up your current element to combine it with another?

Instantly, I focused my will, not on gaining an ability, but replacing my current one. In all my attempts prior, I had focused on augmenting my fire with additional wind abilities, hoping that it would somehow become light. But now… I released all my stored fire in a single burst outwards. It startled the monkeys a little bit but didn’t do any damage to them. Amir looked a little confused as well.

I was empty of fire for the first time in Watchers knew how long. Thankfully, the monkeys didn’t realize that; they didn’t press their advantage. They gave me enough time to focus on absorbing something else entirely. Not flame, not wind. Not even whatever feelings the Red or White Watchers gave me. No, I focused on the Moon, the light it gave off. It didn’t truly make light, it redirected it from the sun, or so said the old books.

I stood there, feeling like a fool, until I felt… something. Something bending within me until it *snapped*. Suddenly I felt as though I was holding a flame to my hand, absorbing a small amount of power. But there was no such flame. The Light Monkey, coming out of its confusion, sent its light over to me. To burn me.

And it did burn. Oh, how it burned. I was entombed in an endless white void. But my skin remained uncharred, only my blood burned. I wasn’t fully able to absorb this power, not like I could with fire. But I could still wield it. And if there was one thing I had learned in my study of light, is that it didn’t work like the monkeys thought it did. They used light as if it was a slowly moving, ever burning fire. But light wasn’t slowly moving. Light was *fast*. I reached out the palm of my hand, and in an instant, a beam of light sprung from it and into the monkey’s eyes. It howled in agony, the light burning me disappearing instantly.

Before the Steel Monkey could strike Amir again, I did the same to it. It covered its eyes in pain, but it was no use. I had blinded it. Spots of light appeared and disappeared as the Light Monkey tried to get ahold of itself. Previously, I could have used fire to end it there and then, but I had renounced fire, and regardless I had no need of it anymore. I concentrated on the stored light I had left and walked casually up to the Light Monkey. It seemed to hear me, and thrashed around, but with its wounded leg it could not escape. I held out my index finger and a single beam of white shot out, leaving a thin hole through the monkey’s skull. With the last of its light, I had killed it.

Amir, now facing a blinded opponent, whittled it down over time. That, I was not concerned with. What was more concerning was that, while I could sense the light falling on his face, on his weapons, shining off the monkey’s armor… I could not see any of these things as one would normally.

The monkey’s light had given me power, but it had also blinded me just as I had blinded them. Permanently, I suspected.

Amir, after finishing his work, turned to me and looked at my eyes in shock. They were pure, unblemished white, he told me. That was the price of power, I supposed. Most of those who went blind in the desert would swiftly die, so I was lucky in the sense that I could still sense the world around me, even if it wasn’t traditional ‘sight’.

We returned to camp and told them of what we had done. Some people said that Amir must be the hero of the day… but a far greater portion agreed that it was I who had saved them. It was then that I had been given a name like my father before me, something I had long resisted.

But no longer was I Nadya, the delicate daughter of the Inferno. Now I was Hakim Aldaw', the Sage of Light, protector of my family and my people.