Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) (55 page)

However, for the past week or so, as they had
traveled farther away from Coe Aela than he had ever gone before in
pursuit of the fugitives, Urie had gotten worried about his chances
out here, especially as the forest surrounding them grew steadily
thicker. He did not know what they might encounter out here, what
hardships or what obstacles they might have to deal with, and he
was worried that he was not up to the challenge, that he might fall
behind, and get lost in the forest, and that they would desert him
as a hopeless cause not worth searching for, because he was not a
real guard of Coe Aela, just a mere servant that they did not
really care about.

Frightened of being
left behind, Urie wanted to prove that he could be a real guard,
and so tried to stay alert, watching the town of Coe Baba,
especially the alleyways leading out of the town square, as
intently as he could, difficult as it was to see anything beyond
the forest through the tall underbrush. Apparently, there was some
meeting going on there, and the other contingent of Coe Aela guards
had set off in that direction. From where he was, Urie and the
other Coe Aela guards could hear some noise swelling from that
direction, apparently there were a lot of people gathered there,
and it was disturbing to them, unable to do anything but sit and
wait here while their friends rode into such danger in the midst of
a large crowd. Because it seemed to them that something had gone
wrong, as they could hear panic and anger rising from that
direction, not to mention see the smoke cloud.

Suddenly, a figure
appeared at the mouth of one of the alleyways leading out of the
town square, and Urie raised his bow, along with about half a dozen
others, prepared to fire. A leaf on a stick brushed up against his
pant leg, but he ignored it. Then they paused, and lowered their
bows slightly, as it was such a small figure, surely smaller than
the fugitives that they had been chasing from where they were? And
they couldn’t see this person very well from where they were.
Still, if this person posed a threat…

Before they knew what was happening, Urie and the
rest of the guards from Coe Aela felt something tighten around
their pants legs, a stick of some kind, only it wasn’t a stick, it
was a branch, twining around them. Before they could fire their
arrows at the person in the meadow, they were wrenched onto the
ground and pulled back by the branches towards the darkness of the
forest. Bows and arrows fell from their hands, as they were
startled by the movement. They scrambled at the ground, trying to
find a purchase for themselves to stop their abduction, but the
force was too great on them and the clutch of the branches too
tight, and they were pulled away, screaming at the top of their
lungs before they were abruptly silenced.

The screams from the
forest echoed across the meadow, and into the town. Fence, who had
been staring as hard as he could at the writhing bushes, before
they suddenly became still, did not have any idea how close he had
come to death, but he knew that something was wrong here. “It’s a
trap, it’s a trap!” Fence cried, running as fast as he could away
from the town square and away from the forest, across the meadow,
not exactly knowing where he was going or what he had just seen,
but the first did not really matter to him, so long as he got away
from here, and he could guess at the last. “There are more soldiers
in the forest!” Fence cried.

Rajar,
who had stopped
at the mouth
of the alleyway, to watch his brother stare at the bushes and take
off running, heard Fence’s cry. He turned around in time to
see
an overwhelming mass of people start
pouring into the alleyway, trying to escape the town
square
, Habala,
and the soldiers
. “Stop, stop, it’s a trap!” Rajar cried, trying to stop
them, but then he was forced to jump out of the way to avoid being
trampled.

Many, if not most,
did not hear him
as they
thundered past
, and those that did hear
him were too hard-pressed to leave the crowd. He thought he saw
Jawen and Talia amongst them.
Fearing what he might see, or what might happen to him, if
he went out into the meadow after them, he stayed in the alleyway,
crying silently to himself.

The
townspeople in the square
faintly heard screams in the distance, the sound of people
running, and almost everyone turned their heads to stare out in the
direction of the forest, almost everyone terrified of what it
meant. “Ah, yes, I had almost forgotten that.” The soldier in
command muttered to himself. “I wonder what’s wrong
now?”

“
What’s
happening out there?” Geda, Habala, and others cried, but they
knew, or they thought they did, and they turned their attentions
back to attacking the soldiers on horseback. For the guards of Coe
Aela, the nightmare had begun.

Chapter 17: A Purpose

Purpose in life is never fixed and
straight, though we

Wish to know where we are going and if
we are heading

In a direction which will lead us to
fulfill that promise. We

Can only hope that we may find a way
that will fulfill us.

--
Purpose, Angora

Nisa sat upon a bench in the kitchen,
rubbing her forehead to relieve the pressure that had built up in
her mind the past couple of weeks, the longest Basha had ever gone
without observation from either Nisa or her father, and perhaps the
farthest he had ever been from either one of them as well. She felt
guilty for having allowed Basha to go on ahead without her when she
was supposed to be keeping her eye upon him, and protecting him as
well.

It was her fault this time. She should
have gotten out of Coe Aela sooner, before Goga captured her and
tortured her along with the other servant women he suspected of
helping the group. He had then ordered that none of the servant
women could leave Coe Aela, although by then it was already too
late for her to track down and catch up with the group running away
in the vast wilderness of the Popo Hills region. In fact, if she
had not held back and waited to leave Coe Aela, for fear of being
discovered by the group if she followed them too closely on their
depature, then she would not have been captured, and she certainly
would not have been captured lying alongside Janus.

Janus, she had goofed up there. She
wasn’t even sure she trusted him completely yet, but she had found
herself drawn to him, soon after she had held a knife-blade at his
throat and he had proven that he had ties to the royal messenger
bird accompanying the group. So she had tried to draw him out after
that, to get to know him better and know what he was doing here in
Coe Aela before she left, but then he had responded to her
attention in kind, and that had been rather nice for her. Though
she had taken a brief stint away from him, in time to help Gnat
retrieve the Black Sword from Goga, she couldn’t stay away from him
for very long, and had returned to Janus that evening before she
was captured. It was quite unlike her. She had delayed leaving Coe
Aela, a dangerous place, to follow after Basha and the group, for a
man she barely knew, even after she had told him so much about
herself and what she was doing--it was unlike her. She was losing
her head, and Basha and his friends might pay the price for her
negligence.

She feared that Basha might be in
trouble, especially with Goga and his men right after him. She
hoped that he might stay ahead of his pursuers, but there was no
guarantee that he would be protected out there without her. She
wished that she could go back home, and talk to her father
face-to-face, instead of by the weak mode of communication that
they had devised that barely ever worked, so that she could
understand why she had done what she did, why she had found Janus
to suddenly be more important than her duty. She couldn’t love him,
could she, not after all these years of responsibility? What was
the matter with her?

She was tired, and ached all over from
the days of labor she had performed at Coe Aela, not to mention the
stint in the dungeon cells she had gone through that ended in
torture, that she wished it all would be over soon. In fact, it
would be. The kitchen door opened, and she looked up at Janus. “Ah,
Nisa, there you are, I was wondering where you had gone off to,”
Janus said, closing the door behind him as he entered the kitchen.
“I hope you are ready for--Nisa, what is the matter with you? Are
you all right?” He asked, studying her.

“
Janus, I am fine, I
just worry for us, for Basha and Oaka, for all of them--” She said,
standing up to face him.

“
Nisa, you worry too
much.” He said, grasping her by the shoulders. “They are fine, they
have each other and the Black Sword, and as for us, we will be
fine. I have prepared for everything that can happen.”

“
How can you know?
Janus, I don’t think you can prepare for everything that will
happen, not in a situation like this. These people will be facing
difficult odds, for though they might overwhelm the guards in
numbers, the guards will be heavily armed, well-trained, and in
peak condition. There are old people and children amongst the
servants. You can’t imagine--”

“
Nisa, I know a
little more than you think. Have some faith in me.” He said,
hugging her tightly, and kissing her on the cheek. “You are wise
beyond your years. You cannot imagine that things will go well.” He
murmured.

“
That’s because
things rarely do go well.” She murmured, shaking her head. “This is
all so sudden, it is beyond anything that I ever could have
imagined, and I do have a good imagination. That I would trust
somebody so quickly, though, makes me speechless, because I have
not trusted anybody as quickly and as much as I have trusted you,
aside from my parents,” Nisa told Janus, lifting her head and
staring at him. “And even then--I do not trust you completely.” She
said. “I look at you and think how can you be so young? How old are
you, Janus? Are you close to my age, or are you far
older?”

“
Far older, Nisa, far
older than you can possibly believe.” Janus admitted, staring down
at her.

“
Try me. My father is
the Old Man, and he is at least 2,000 years old, if not older.” She
said.

“
Is that right? Nisa,
I am 75 years old.” Janus admitted.

Nisa stared at him, backing away. “How
can it be so?” She asked. “How is it possible? How can you two be
so well preserved?” She asked.

“
I don’t know about
your father, but as for me--I made a mistake in my past when I was
young, a long time ago, believing what I was told by others and
falling in step with them. I learned the foolish error of my ways
at the foot of their master, but by then it was too late. I was
changed irrevocably beyond my years, I could not change back, nor
could I move forward. I remained stuck in my position--”

“
Wait a minute, wait
a minute!” Nisa cried, raising her hand. “I cannot believe--are you
telling me that you were once a Follower of Doomba? And that you
met Doomba?”

“
He is the one who
changed me,” Janus said, lowering his head, “Against my will, he
sucked everything out of me--”

“
No, no, no!” Nisa
cried, slamming her fist down on the counter as she turned away
from him. “You can’t be, you just can’t--” She lowered her head,
and covered her eyes as she whispered, “I trusted you.”

“
You can trust me,
Nisa.” Janus said, reaching out for her, but then she swatted at
him.

“
No, I can’t even
look at you.” She muttered as he backed away from her.

“
I thought that, for
the longest time, I would have to live on with this face and
continue on with what I was doing like nothing had changed,” Janus
said, rubbing the back of his head, “Like I was still a loyal
Follower of Doomba. But something had changed in my heart.” He
said, looking up at her with eyes like silver shadow pools. “And
soon after, my actions reflected that. I abandoned my old ways and
gave up my career, my acquaintances, and my habits as Cannon, the
loyal Follower of Doomba with his mark upon him, and I became
Janus, the unknowable, the unfollower. I turned towards the highest
authority I could find opposing Doomba, King Sonnagh, and I told
him the truth of what I had done, of what I had known, and he
believed me.” Janus seemed stunned by this revelation
still.

“
You have the mark of
Doomba upon you, a part of him still inhabits you.” Nisa muttered,
peeking out at him from between her fingers. “I can’t look at you,
because he might be looking back at me. I cannot risk
that.”

“
I can’t change
that,” Janus grimaced. “And I wish I could, but I don’t know how.
But the chances of Doomba looking through me, of using that part of
himself inside of me--I’m not sure how often he does something like
that, but it has got to be rare.”

“
You’re not sure,”
She gritted her teeth, “And he has a hold of you.” She said,
lowering her hands slowly, warily, as she glared at him. “I cannot
risk everything for you, Janus. I cannot risk—I have told you too
much already.” She said.

“
I’m not sure how
often he uses that ability, but I think I have a greater hold on
myself than he does.” He said. “Remember that humans get to choose
what they do as Followers. What hold Doomba has on any one of us is
a wisp compared to what we do ourselves, and I chose to leave him
behind me. I chose to follow King Sonnagh, and I choose now to lead
these servants out of Coe Aela. I want you to come with
me.”