The Outcast and the Survivor: Chapter Nine

The Outcast and the Survivor

  Written by Trevor A. A. Evans

  Text Copyright © 2015 by Trevor A. A. Evans

  Published by Thirteen Crossroads Publishing

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation in articles and reviews.

  www.thirteencrossroads.com

  Preface

  The story that follows is part of a chapter-series, The Outcast and the Survivor. It has been made available on Kindle and Nook as a convenience, since it is available free of charge directly on the Thirteen Crossroads Publishing website. The story will continue with a new chapter being released each month until the last chapter is published in December 2017.

  Chapter Nine

  I am alone. At least that is what it feels like.

  Astor hasn’t spoken much since we left Vanguard. I’ve tried to cheer him up in small ways, a light comment here, a funny story there, but it’s obvious he’s hurting with thoughts of his mother, though he never mentions it. The passing weeks have only seen him get worse, but I can hardly blame him.

  The sound of Sebastian’s voice and the image of him grasping Julienne’s throat and threatening to inflict such awful pain on her have burned themselves into my memory. I cringe at the very thought. With Julienne in the hands of such a vicious fiend, I can’t think of anything to say to make Astor feel better, so I avoid mentioning her in the rare moments we do talk. He cries some nights. It makes it hard to have hope, not that he hasn’t been a good companion and guide during our trek to the Necromancer’s lair, but the days are eerily quiet.

  It’s not just Astor, though. The land, too, has an empty hush to it, like that feeling when you are nervous and take a deep breath anticipating that something awful is about to happen. The wilderness here on the western shores of the river Lethe has become void of wildlife. Astor says this is normal before the Festival of Three Suns. Most life flees east across the river as the light becomes its brightest up until the total solar alignment, something now only perhaps a few weeks away.

  The wind has picked up this morning and blows violently through the tall grass in the golden fields ahead of us. We are still a few hours from reaching the region of direct sunlight, but the ambient glow around it is so intense that anything remotely near is lit up brilliantly. It is truly awestriking.

  “I would have expected to see something moving about, at least this close to the lighted area,” I comment to Astor some time later, noticing that the land is empty even among the fields beneath the strands and pillars of light breaking through the mist. “The land was so alive just a couple months ago.”

  “Yeah,” he replies with a soft voice. “You can thank your people’s thirst for world stones. The land here is purged of whatever life remains as your festival approaches so that nothing is left to oppose your warriors. By this point, there’s almost nothing left, though we should still remain cautious.”

  “Have you ever seen it, when the world stone appears?” I ask.

  “Yes. It wasn’t easy getting into the citadel, but I managed it once many years ago.”

  “What citadel?”

  “There,” he says, pointing at a dense forest in the distance. “It’s hidden deep within those trees. A single wall surrounds the citadel, its ceiling open like a sky lit courtyard with towers and fortifications around it. There is a chamber at the center, right where the pinnacle of light rests. That is where the stone forms, where I once tried to take it.”

  “Why do that when my father intended to give you one?”

  “This was before your parents came to power, when my mother…” he pauses, looking down. “When she thought we could try to steal one for our people. I spent weeks sneaking in. Hiding. Waiting. Starving. But even if I got it for a second, I would be surrounded by an army. We needed another way.”

  As I listen, I stare off at those faraway trees. It is then that I notice the first sign of life I’ve seen in days, a line of soldiers marching in our direction. Warriors from Kalepo.

  “I’ve often dreamed of what it would be like to be one of them,” Astor comments, stepping next to me.

  It sounds odd coming from someone as old as him, though maybe he sometimes thinks of things like children do.

  “There’s not much joy in it,” I reply. “They train most of the time, and have to maintain a solitude lifestyle in the Warrior District, a part of the city that—”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard,” he interrupts, “but I envy them because the people they protect stay safe. They don’t hear the marching of their enemies in the day, or ominous whispers in the dark.”

  A frightening chill runs through my whole body as memories of darkness flood my mind. My escape from the mountain caves with something terrifying in pursuit. Wade rescuing me from the palace at Sanctuary. That moment below Vanguard when some power almost completely overcame me.

  “Let’s keep going,” I say abruptly.

  We reach the border of the light some time later and follow it north, staying just outside of it to avoid attracting attention, not that there’s any guarantee we’ll be able to go completely unnoticed. According to Astor, patrols from Kalepo will be monitoring this region closely until the festival, and we don’t have time to go completely around them. Each day counts. Each day is one more of suffering for Yori and Julienne.

  I am left to imagine what became of Wade. At least I know where the others are. Wade could be anywhere doing anything. Whenever I hear a rustling in the brush, or feel the paranoia of eyes watching me, I almost expect Wade to suddenly appear with some fantastic plan like he was never gone. Sometimes I want that. And other times I’d rather him be dead. How I feel about him still confuses me, making his fate is a haunting mystery that frequently occupies my mind.

  Concerns about tomorrow start to trouble me as we slowly move through fields and wooded areas to the northern reach of the light. Seeking the Necromancer, to my surprise, didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world at first, though that’s how Astor initially reacted. Despite Yori’s attempt to demonize the Necromancer, there was always a part of me that remained intrigued by him, by his promises of truth. But now that we are so close, I’m starting to have second thoughts.

  The mist above us begins fading from gold to red and grey as the evening sets in and we turn directly north toward foothills on the distant horizon. We don’t get much further before we have to make camp for the night in some trees. After we get a needed rest, we’ll make the final push up into those hills and hopefully reach the Necromancer by the following evening.

  It doesn’t take long for Astor to fall asleep as the twilight sets in. I’m glad, both because he usually has a hard time with it and because I want to think in solitude. Sleep is the last thing on my mind right now as I begin to recognize where we are. The tree we are camping in is just a stone’s throw from the one Wade and I climbed on my first night in the plains.

  It’s crazy just how much has happened since then, how much has changed. I had no idea then the danger and intrigue that stood before me, nor could I have ever imagined the strange people I would meet and the amazing things that would be revealed to me concerning other worlds and the stars above. And never would I have suspected that my own world, one that once seemed timeless and unchanging, was creeping ever nearer toward utter chaos and the imminent threat of war.

  The importance of our mission is much higher than I ever anticipated. Astor says that the armies of the plains will soon be on the move, having used the years of peace my father and mother brought to these lands to build themselves up in prepar
ation for fighting back and eventually marching up the Great Stairway. And I suppose they have great reason to try.

  Kalepo’s kings and queens had waged a secret war for centuries against the people of the plains to maintain their hold over the world stones. The Festival of Three Suns was the cover for that war and kept most of Kalepo’s people from being any the wiser, living in blissful ignorance, as my father often said, though I, too, was shielded from the truth until I came here.

  No matter what wicked things Mariam is planning, I hope she can protect our kingdom. My heart feels for my people and trembles at the sword hanging over their heads. I miss them and the mountains that peer watchfully over them. Even now as Astor and I push forward with the hope of escape for those in the plains struggling for survival, I long to return there, just as I long to see my sister again despite what she is, though I wonder how she will react should that day ever come.

  My mind keeps me up with thoughts like these, and the night drags on. I become so frenzied that even as my exhausted body begs me to drift into a deep slumber, my eyes won’t stay shut. They just bounce around at whatever is able to catch the faded blue light pushing through from above. The mist must be thinner here than in other areas, enough for faint starlight.

  The grass below us waves lightly as a breeze brushes through it,