The Trials of Lance Eliot (24 page)

So much for my epiphany.

“If this is true, why doesn't anyone in my world know about Gea?” I asked. “Everyone here seems to know about Terra.”

Regis shrugged. “Maybe those who went back to Terra kept quiet about Gea because they were afraid of being called liars or lunatics for talking about other worlds. Maybe they did talk about Gea, and no one believed them.”

“Fair enough,” I admitted. “If someone in Oxford had come up to me a year ago and told me about Gea, I would have told him not to talk to me again until he was sober.”

The history in the Book of El was incredible, yet it explained why Gea seemed so familiar. There was something else it made clear. I thought it strange that mythological creatures like dragons were living, breathing realities in Gea. If people from Gea returned to Terra before the passages closed, the stories they told about these creatures could have passed into our mythology—in other words, some of our myths might have a basis in fact.

It was satisfying to have answers to my questions, and also strangely comforting. In spite of its differences, Gea was closer to my world than I had known. Moreover, the existence of dragons and other monsters didn't trouble me quite so much. Now that I understood how they had found their way into mythology—from reality—they seemed a little less unnatural.

Weeks went by and life was good—well, bearable. There were times when a longing for home and friends and family made me ache until I could hardly stand it. I could see Regis was still deeply grieved by the death of Kana.

In the meantime, soldiers from the first Resistance began to arrive in the city and were briefed by Atticus and Petra. A few of them joined Tsurugi and helped him train recruits. The ranks of the Resistance swelled to several hundred. We felt hopeful that our rebellion would be a success, yet beneath our optimism lay despair. The rebellion was only the first step. We still had Tyria, Nomen, pirates and the inexplicable Darkness to worry about.

A letter arrived for me one evening. Atticus left it on my pillow. Alone in the garret, I opened the envelope and read it. Then I collapsed onto the bed, clutching the letter to my chest and trying not to faint. I reread it, trying to keep my breathing steady.

It read:

I'm alive. Find me at Akrabbim. –Maia Lufian

I went looking for Tsurugi and found him training recruits in the courtyard. Pacing back and forth, the letter clenched in my hand, I waited until he had a moment to spare.

“Tsurugi, where is Akrabbim?”

“East of here. The Darkness has covered it by now.”

I shuddered, but pressed on. “Are you still planning to look for the source of the Darkness?”

He nodded.

“How soon?”

“I have to finish training the recruits.”

“Can't you leave that to the other soldiers?”

Tsurugi turned away. “You want me gone.”

“Yes, but only because I want to go with you.”

For an instant, his empty expression gave way to a look of comical bewilderment.

“Why?”

I showed him the letter.

“I can't take you.”

“Tsurugi, listen to me. I need you to take me to Akrabbim.”

“It's too dangerous. It's suicide.”

“Yet you're going.”

“That's different.”

“How
is it different?”

“Someone has to find the root of the Darkness. But not you.”

“I'm leaving tonight if you won't take me, I swear.”

“I won't take you,” he said, and then turned back to the recruits.

I put the letter in my pocket and went upstairs to pack my things. Never mind Tsurugi; I would go alone. I needed food for the journey. I didn't want to steal, but it was too late to make the long trek to the marketplace. In the end, I compromised by taking food from the pantry and leaving most of my valores on the empty shelf.

Although I wanted to write a note explaining why I had gone, I couldn't write in Rovenian. I found one of the children, the little girl named Trista, and asked if she could help me.

“I need to write a note, but I don't know how,” I told her.

“But you work at the press,” she said, surprised. “Mister Regis told me you proofread the prints.”

“I can read, but I can't write. Would you write a note for me?” I took out my last ten-valor piece. “If you help me, I'll give you this coin.”

“I don't need money. I'd be happy to write a note for you, Mister Lance.”

“There's a condition, Trista. You can't tell anybody
.
All right?”

“All right.”

So with Trista's help I composed the following note:

Dear friends, I received a note from Maia Lufian, who's apparently not dead after all. She asked me to find her at a place called Akrabbim. Although I took some food from the pantry, I left money to cover the cost. I'm sorry for not saying goodbye, but I thought it would be better to slip away without making a fuss. I hope your Resistance is a smashing success. Whatever happens, Rovenia is in good hands. Thanks for all your help and support. El be with you. –Lance Eliot

I felt a little guilty writing
El be with you
when his existence was in question, but I decided the encouragement of my friends outweighed my personal convictions. Trista's spelling was dubious—an alarming number of words appeared to me as jumbles of random letters—but I trusted my companions would be able to read the note anyway.

I thanked my little friend, took a long drink, visited the outhouse, gathered my baggage, mounted one of the hunds and rode away from the orphanage. By this time I knew my way around the city well enough to find the street that led to the city gate. I paused at a shop to purchase a map with the coin Trista had refused.

After questioning me about my destination and purpose for traveling—I lied about both—the surly, black-bearded guard allowed me to pass through the city gate. I rode out of Valdelaus, traveled about a mile down the road and turned eastward. The sun was setting behind me. It was extremely cold, and my heart was already full of misgivings. Until that evening, I had always traveled with companions.

I would make this trip alone, or so I thought.

15

LANCE ELIOT LOSES A FRIEND AND GAINS AN ENEMY

NIGHT FELL. UNWILLING TO stumble through the dark, I stopped in a grove of pine trees and tried to set up the tent. In my travels with Regis and Tsurugi, they had always pitched the tent and built the fire, leaving me with the uncomplicated tasks of finding water and gathering firewood. Now that I had to make camp by myself, I realized I hadn't the slightest idea of how to do anything.

I finally managed to build a small fire, though it was nearly smothered when a mound of snow fell into it from an overhanging branch. I fed my hund, covered it with a cloth and resolved to pitch the tent. After wrestling with the tent cloth, poles and pegs for half an hour, I changed my mind. I rolled myself up in a blanket, wrapped the tent cloth around me and lay down on the hard ground.

It took a long time to fall asleep. Snow sometimes slipped from the pine branches and plopped
onto the ground. The frigid air made my face hurt, but I couldn't breathe when I covered it with the tent cloth. I hardly slept. After a miserable night, I crawled out of the tent cloth like a bedraggled moth emerging from a cocoon. I smoked a pipe of tobacco, stuffed the damp tent cloth into my pack and nibbled on some bread. Then I sat staring at the fire, wondering whether it wouldn't be better to return to Valdelaus and leave Maia in the hands of fate.

I heard a noise, started and turned around. There stood Tsurugi, a pack on his back, holding the reins of a hund.

“Hang it, don't startle me like that,” I gasped.

“You should've been listening,” he said. “You won't go far unless you learn to pay attention.”

There was something different about him. He looked like an actual human being. The mask was gone. The vacant look had vanished from his eyes.

“Tsurugi, why—I mean, how the deuce—what are you doing here?”

“Helping you.”

“But you said you wouldn't take me to Akrabbim.”

“That didn't stop you from leaving.”

“How in Tartarus did you find me?”

“You left footprints. Now pack. We travel while there's light.”

Tsurugi euthanized the dying fire with handfuls of snow as I finished packing. After breakfast (his arrival had restored my appetite) we departed. We traveled in silence, occasionally checking the map to make sure we were on the right course. At first we passed through the towns and villages that clustered around Valdelaus. Tsurugi had brought along a good supply of money, which we spent on warm clothes, extra canteens and nonperishable food.

Then we passed into the wilder lands southeast of the capital. Mountains grew on the horizon. According to the map, there was a gap in the range some leagues away. Beyond the gap lay plains, which were covered with farmsteads and grain fields. The region now lay beneath the Darkness. Akrabbim lay within these plains.

We reach the mountains after a week and a half of travel. They towered above us, bleak and grim. My misgivings multiplied. It was a relief to have Tsurugi as my companion. He had changed. I could not describe his demeanor as
cheerful
,
but he seemed less morose. He was certainly more talkative. In fact, he sometimes went so far as to respond when I asked a question or made an observation, leading to a tentative conversation.

One evening we made camp in a cave near the gap in the mountains. I suppose it would be a little misleading to call it a
gap
. It was more of a saddle, a low ridge between two peaks. Reaching the top of the ridge took a good deal of climbing, and my hund sometimes slipped and threw me into the snow. On one terrifying occasion, I fell off the hund at a steep point and rolled thirty or forty feet before crashing to a stop in a bush.

As night fell, we found a cave among the rocks. Heavy snow gave way to rain.

“It's raining, not snowing,” I said, spreading out our supper on a blanket on the cave floor. “Does that mean we've almost reached spring?”

“It's still a month away,” said Tsurugi.

“Thank God it's not more. I hate winter. I always have, but more than ever since we left Faurum.”

Tsurugi brushed away his hair from his face, and I glimpsed the three stars on his forehead.

“What's that mark?” I asked, surprising myself. I expected him not to answer, but my surprise grew into absolute shock as he answered without hesitation.

“A reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

Silence.

“A reminder of what, Tsurugi?”

“Mistakes.”

“What mistakes? I've never seen you do anything wrong. Well, there was the one time you snapped at Miles, but apart from that you haven't—”

“Let me tell you a story,” said Tsurugi, uttering what may have been the last words I had ever expected to hear from his mouth.

“All right.”

“It's not a true story,” he said, staring at the fire. “It's a fable the old women in my town told the children, but it's close to being true.

“There was once a boy who was very wicked, though he tried to be good. The children in his village shunned him. His parents were ashamed of his wickedness. The boy wanted to be good, but it was too hard for him.

“A witch lived in a cave in the moor outside his village. One day he went and begged her to take away his wickedness. She advised against it. ‘Forgiveness and virtue are stronger than magic,' she said. ‘If you hide from your sins, they will find you. The only way to be free from your sins is to conquer them.'

“The boy ignored her warnings. The witch finally agreed to remove his wickedness with magic, and drew it out of him. It was a shadow, dark and cold, blacker than night without stars. It was pure wickedness.”