ABLE (Jim Able: Offworld Book 1) by Ed Charlton (the first e reader .TXT) 📕

physically hurt at all. A miracle, really. But, that said, I have no idea what’s wrong with him.”

“Let me see what I can do.” Maya knelt down in the sand. She scooted herself up close to the sleeping Ratt, while Lucy pulled back, giving her lady space to work.

A moment later, Jon and the others watched as the goddess did her thing, humming a soft melody and placing her small hands on Ratt’s chest, which rose and fell almost imperceptibly.

After a minute, Maya finished her song, scooted back, and stood, brushing grains of clinging sand from her knees.

“I suspect that he was touched by the Drop itself. I am sensing changes deep within his innate Strange. I could be wrong, but I think the Drop, perhaps the pocket-dimension itself, is somehow communicating with him. And, I think…” she added almost as an afterthought, “that he is talking back to it.”

Jon frowned, straining to understand the super-dimensional mechanics of Hell and Strange in general, but withheld his questions.

“I will tend to him as best I can, but he may simply need time to return to our world fully,” Maya explained.

Jon nodded, then announced to his friends that he would do the meditation of the pillar.

“We need to confirm that we are still even on Earth, and if so, find out how far off course we are.”

The pillar of golden light still stood on the horizon like a lighthouse. It offered small relief, though, for they still could not use it to gauge distance. They had no way of knowing whether the base of the beam was just over the small hills in the distance, say maybe a day or two away, or if it burst forth from a place halfway across the globe and entire oceans separated them from it. Still, it was a comfort to know that they had returned from the bardo to the Earth they knew.

“Maya,” Jon said, “maybe you should open a door back to Home for us. We have no idea how far away the Morning Star is. I know the Old Guard took all the other transports, but we could set out on wheels, perhaps.”

“But we have no way of knowing if that would be faster or slower than finishing the journey on foot,” Maya protested. “And we must…” She left the thought unspoken.

“I know, hurry,” Jon finished it for her, holding up his hands and flexing them open and closed. Everyone knew that Jon’s lifespan was a ticking clock, counting down to extinction.

“Maya, Ratt is out, we don’t know for how long, or even what’s wrong with him. And our gear…” Jon gestured around, letting the carnage speak for itself. “We simply aren’t in any shape to continue on foot. Xibalba could be on the other side of the globe for all we know. We have to go back and start over.”

He saw the pained look on her face breaking into spoken protest like a wave, cresting at its zenith, about to come crashing down and cut her off with more cold, hard facts.

“It’s only been a month, Maya. I have time.”

Maya looked at Jon for a long time, her eyes searching him for something. Finally, she broke the awkward silence.

“Very well. We go back, regroup, and start over. We still have time.”

The group nodded in agreement and waited for Maya to lead the way via her powerful Strange.

Maya began her shaping exactly as she had before, the last time she had created a Drop-like portal for them to escape from. Only this time, they weren’t falling to their deaths in a Ziggurat trash-tube, so it took Jon a second to recognize the melody.

Maya had her back to Jon and the others and was looking out across the desert scrub and the bruised flesh sky that spoke of impending twilight.

She made tiny gestures with her fingers and wrists as if she wore invisible finger-cymbals that made no sound. Her arms and hips swayed gently like one of the spindly limbs of the prolific ocotillo cactus that dotted the plain around them.

The air directly in front of Maya began to shimmer, wavering the very fabric of reality, as if a wall of perfectly clear water had been raised from the ground, and stood vertically, in defiance of the laws of physics.

Then, like a note played off-key, Maya’s song was rudely interrupted by a yelp of pain. The goddess instantly ceased her gentle song and her hand shot to her temple as fast as her body dropped to its knees.

The portal, still only half-formed, like a sheet of ripples suspended in the air, oscillated violently before snapping in on itself, reducing in size until it was no bigger than a tea saucer.

A small portal began to fill the now reduced sheet, its aperture starting in the center and growing until it reached the edges, where it abruptly stopped.

Jon rushed forward, wrapping his arms around the pained goddess, demanding to know she was okay.

“I, I, uh… it hurts,” Maya said weakly, her left hand still glued to her temple. She looked up through the hood of Jon’s embrace and beheld her handiwork.

She had opened a portal to her private chambers in the upper levels of Home, which she had relinquished to To-Kan and Wyntr, yet still remained one of her teleportation anchors. The opening of the portal had been successful, but it was only a hand’s width in circumference.

“That’s, uh… not good. Right?” Carbine asked.

“No, Rene,” Jon snapped without turning around. “That’s not good. Maya, what happened?”

“I don’t know. My head hurts,” she mumbled, her words slurred, and she swayed as if she were hypnotized. A thought lanced Jon’s mind, triggering a recent memory.

“Your head. You were rubbing it earlier, in the transport.”

“It’s, uh… it’s where I was hit. By the drop.” Maya finished the thought for him, apparently realizing where he was going with his line of thought.

“Whatever put Ratt down, it must’ve affected me somehow too.”

“At least as far as your ability to open doors,”