Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1)

by Sky Corbelli

  Chapter 3

  Surprises and Sheep

  The sun was still setting on this side of the mountains, painting the landscape in shades of orange and pink. It was a breathtaking view. Far below his little shelf of stone, rolling fields and sprawling forests stretched out to the horizon. He had a brief, fluttering feeling of being too exposed. With no mountains looming up to devour half the sky, the world just kept going on and on until it curved out of sight. Nothing he could have done could have prepared him for this sight.

  Fortunately, he had been prepared for his lack of preparation. The timer on the wormhole controller beeped at him, snapping him out of his reverie. Mentally berating himself for standing around and staring like an idiot, Ezra readied his antique analogue hologram camera and began narrating.

  “What you are seeing here is actual footage from outside the mountains. As you can see, the world is not a wasteland anymore. Things are living and growing and thriving out here. In fact,” he pulled off his radiation badge and dangled it in front of the camera's lens, “there is no measurable residual radiation, and the air is fresh and clean.”

  Ezra began to focus the camera on various features of the landscape below, naming them off as he went.

  “You can see that there are fields of this long, golden grass spread out all around us. There is also a natural forest off to the north...” He reoriented to bring it into frame. “Those trees must be massive to be visible with the naked eye from up here. And look! A stream is flowing out of the forest and oh-my-god-did-you-see-that! A fish! A fish just jumped out of the water! There is animal life out in the world! The Earth is capable of supporting life again!”

  Hardly able to contain his excitement, Ezra rambled on as he skimmed the forest line in search of more wonders. He went on for quite a while, the light slowly fading around him.

  “More trees, more grass... did something move there?! No, no that was just the wind... let's see here, grass, grass, trees, and–”

  Startled, Ezra jerked his head up and squinted off into the distance... and was struck with embarrassment for doing something so pointless. He returned to the camera and his narration.

  “There are mammals down there, a whole big group of them! It's a little dark, but you can see that they're white and they look fluffy...” Ezra raked his memory for the right word, the name for the animals out there. Liza Crawford had spouted some nonsense when trying to get him to go to sleep back when she babysat for him, it had something to do with counting... “Sheep! Those are sheep! It's a group, uh, gaggle, no, no, flock! A flock of sheep! This is the most amazing thing any human being has seen in over a thousand years! Oh! And a dog! It looks like it's running toward the sheep and... and... around them... almost like it's trying to... make them change directions or...” Ezra trailed off, confused.

  A dog? Running sheep around like that? Herding! That was the word! There were some old vids floating around on the net where dogs did things like that, but there was always a person with them, directing them where to go. Ezra scanned the camera toward around the edges of the miraculous flock until he saw, “A shepherd, out there with the sheep.” His words came out as a whisper. “A girl. A human girl,” he continued in a stunned voice, “outside of Sanctuary, with a flock of sheep and a dog and she has a staff and she's herding the sheep toward... toward a road.”

  Ezra gulped down the lump that was forming in his throat. “And... and there are wagons on the road. And more people. They're all moving in the same direction.” He zoomed the camera in. “I can see... I can see a wall, and what look like rooftops behind it. A town. A town that is not Sanctuary, full of people who are not in Sanctuary. But no-one is allowed to leave Sanctuary, and there's no way down from here and no way across the mountains. They don't seem to have much in the way of technology, and all of that together would mean... it would mean...” Ezra paused, reaching his conclusion but afraid to utter it aloud. Steeling himself, he whispered, “It would mean that they aren't from Sanctuary. That they've been living out here the whole time, for the last thousand years. How could we not know about this? Who could...” He trailed off, feeling sick.

  Who could have hidden this? Who would want to? He looked down at the camera in horror. This was no new discovery. This was someone's secret. When a person stumbled across information in the genetically locked data banks of one of the Legacy families, even as an honest accident, they disappeared. Certainly, some of them resurfaced years later, either as adopted members of the family or as raving lunatics with black marks on their names... but no-one ever went back to their old life.

  Who wanted to keep this a secret, and what would they do to make it sure it stayed hidden? He had the sudden urge to destroy the camera, leave the crushed remains here, step back to his lab and hole up there for the next few years. It had happened before. A brilliant scientist on the perpetual verge of a what he thought would be a world-shattering breakthrough would sometimes lock himself away from everything and everyone. Then, years later, he would surprise colleagues by not being dead and sometimes being sane. He could just say that he was absorbed in his work.

  My work! Ezra was suddenly flooded with relief. His work was important. His family was important. Not even the Chancellor himself could get away with vanishing him. Then again, he considered, glancing out toward the town in the distance, something this big...

  Back and forth Ezra paced, feeling better as he rationalized his importance to society or his chances of keeping this secret, then despairing as he theorized what would happen when the wrong person found out. The camera captured minutes of fascinating footage of the ground, his feet, the mountain beside him, until a loud beeping snapped him back to reality. The wormhole device announced that he had thirty minutes before both portals would shut down. He stared down at the controller. That would certainly end his dilemma. What stories would crop up to explain his mysterious disappearance?

  He looked back in the direction of the town. If he could find a way down... maybe even project a wormhole to the surface, he could make a place for himself in the outside world. Maybe he could be happy out there.

  Ezra sighed. No. That's the coward's way out.

  He nodded to himself. Not saying anything at all, that was a coward's way too. He had a plan, a mission. He looked back at the camera. This may be someone's secret, but everyone deserved to know. Ezra knew what he had to do. He would go back. He would find an up-link terminal well away from home. He would anonymously upload the video to the net. Then he would do everything in his power to be a good citizen, bury himself in work, court who-so-ever Miss O'Donnell felt appropriate, and wait to see what would happen. That was what he had to do. That was the right thing to do.

  Set in his resolve, Ezra stepped back through the portal and began the short walk his lab. He stopped just before walking in and took one last look around the shadowy landscape inside the mountains. It wasn't right that they lived boxed in like this. It wasn't fair that they thought themselves alone on a barren planet. His eyes lingered on the gentle purple glow of the barrier around Sanctuary. Splashes of bright color were visible even from here, lighting the sky as the Founder's Day celebration kicked into full swing.

  How much more would they rejoice to know that there was a whole world of beauty and wonder waiting just outside? How much could they help the people living out there with modern innovations? He had wanted to make this a Founder's Day that the whole world would remember, and that was what he was going to do, consequences be damned. With a determined little smile on his face he stepped toward the wormhole home.

  And watched it blink out of existence.