Marooned

by Travis Smith

  When he finally approached, The Stranger offered Patrick a heavy fur coat, which he took without a word. The Stranger sat beside him and peered off into the forest. They sat that way in silence for a time, then The Stranger got up and began gathering sticks to bundle up to build a fire.

  “I’m not going back in there,” Patrick said once a small fire began burning.

  The Stranger gestured toward the flames. “What do ya think this is for?” he chuckled. “I know. I know better than most.” He sat down again beside the boy and heaved a heavy sigh.

  “It was her.” Patrick said. “All this time wondering what happened in Onton … wondering why it happened … and it was just some woman and her family.”

  “Oftentimes there simply is no better explanation.”

  “She has to pay.”

  The Stranger shook his head. “She is making her atonements.”

  “Everyone else. Everyone she helped. Everyone who helped her.”

  “I didn’t return to help you seek revenge …”

  “I didn’t ask you to!” Patrick huffed. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need any of them.”

  The Stranger reached a hand out, but Patrick slid out of reach and looked away. “You came to help me save Olivia. That’s done, and she doesn’t even love me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She loves Brandon still. She chose him.”

  “Love is not always a choice at first,” The Stranger said. “It is a force that does not bend to will.”

  “I felt it,” Patrick said, “and she did, too. Before … before the others were taken.”

  “If only the world were so simple, but it isn’t always black and white, Will—Patrick,” he corrected.

  “I’m not your son,” he spat, lying down by the fire, his back to The Stranger.

  We are your family, his voice spoke inside The Stranger’s memory. His mind burned with the image of Laura and William, burning up far down on the streets below his tower.

  “I am well aware,” he replied brusquely, for you’ve brought me further from them each day, he almost continued. “I’m leaving on that ship tomorrow with or without you.”

  “That’s no concern of mine,” Patrick grumbled. “Just go and let me sleep.”

  The Stranger shook his head. He leaned back against a tree and stared darkly into the setting sun before closing his eyes and allowing himself to sleep as well. The witch’s premonitions flashed ceaselessly in his mind. Your heart is naught but shadow, she taunted.

  19

  Three men approached the fire’s glowing embers in the darkness.

  “They’s just the two of ’em,” one whispered. “Boy’s righ’ there.”

  “Grab ’im, an’ let’s get out o’ here.”

  Patrick grunted as a gruff hand fell over his mouth and lifted his body upright from a dead sleep. He writhed beneath the grasp, but the man was too strong.

  “Pop ’is frien’ one in the ’ead.”

  “No!” the third man hissed sharply. “If ’e moves, kill ’im where he stands, but we don’ need the others chasin’ us through these woods all night! Just get the boy an’ go.”

  20

  When The Stranger awoke early in the next morning, the boy was gone. He walked back to the barn and entered to find most everyone still asleep. They stirred at his entrance as he picked up a pack and his weapon.

  “Where is Patrick?” Brandon asked.

  “He left,” The Stranger replied darkly.

  “What?” Brandon was on his feet. Maria and John were close behind.

  The Stranger shook his head. “The ferry leaves soon. I cannot be stranded in this land another day.”

  “Where did he go?” Brandon demanded.

  “Back toward the prison,” he snapped. “On some personal vendetta.”

  “He wouldn’t!” Brandon said, snatching up a pack and looking at Jake. “We have to go after him.”

  The Stranger took his belongings and walked to the barn door. “I am going to my family,” he said. “Good fortune to you all.”

  Maria rushed toward the door, but Corina spoke up. “Let him go. We’ll find the boy and catch up with him after the winter. He isn’t getting far on Iskar on his own anyway.”

  21

  The sky was dim and grey as The Stranger peered back over the ferry’s deck toward Fordar’s coast. It was a stark contrast to the fiery-red, hopeful sunrise he’d watched as he sailed away from the old man’s island. “Ye’ll end up in Hell!” Eugene had promised.

  The Stranger sighed, and a scruffy shorebird cawed and broke him from his meditation. He looked at the wretched thing perched not far away on the ship’s mast. Its mangy feathers stood in all directions—certainly no albatross.

  I have to find my son, he thought, turning to face the north now. As he turned his back on all those behind him, the sea faded away in the wintry fog, and he could see nothing that lay ahead in the shadows.

  The Cave:

  Final

  A ndrew Babbitt continued to sputter and sob in the silent cave. He did not kneel or collapse as the previous man who’d appeared had. There was something pitiful about his half-composure that he struggled to maintain.

  “How did you die?” Christopher asked again, enunciating each word.

  “I don’t know,” Drew babbled. “I can’t remember.”

  “You said he killed them? Who is he?” Christopher asked. “How did you get here?”

  This set Babbitt off into another fit of sobbing. He shook his head as he wept. “I don’t know.”

  Christopher rolled his eyes and dropped his arms to his side. “Do you know anything? How long have you been here?”

  Drew regained composure long enough to look up at the pair with tearful eyes. He shook his head slowly, obviously attempting to recall. “Time is strange here,” he said, “but I met someone else before you.”

  “You did?” Christopher asked. “Who?”

  As if on cue, a young boy stepped around the bend and emerged from the darkness. He stared not at the pair, but at The Stranger, with determined eyes.

  “Patrick?” The Stranger said.

  Epilogue

  “S o this is it?” Antonio Staig asked. “This is the fabled boy ’at’s been runnin’ aroun’ causin’ all this chaos?”

  “The very one,” his companion said with a grin, forcing the boy into a chair in the strange quarters.

  “Don’ look like much,” Antonio mused. “Came all the way ’cross the sea expectin’ a bit more of a challenge.”

  The man shrugged. “Wot ye expect? He’s jus’ a boy.”

  Antonio waved his hands in a dismissive gesture and held one palm out for a weapon to be placed within.

  “You sure abou’ tha’ other one? I think he was The Baron’s—”

  Antonio cut the man off as a small pistol was placed into his hand. “Bernard is handling ’is own affairs. There are much larger matters at play.”

  The boy snarled at the villains and opened his mouth to speak at last. “You will never get—!”

  His proclamation was cut short as a single gunshot rang out. The bullet entered between his eyes, halting all speech.

  “Get the stone,” Antonio said as the boy slumped dead in the chair.

  About The Author

  Travis Smith is a neurology resident in Albany, New York. He writes novels and poetry part-time. The Stranger: Marooned is Travis’s fourth publication and the second book in The Stranger fantasy/adventure series.

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