“No. Thank you.” He reached out, realizing his arms were fully free, and pushed away the spoon. Some of the mush dripped onto the floor.
The creature looked frustrated but simply turned and walked away. Nathaniel stood up. He felt better than he had in a long time, though his body still throbbed with a dull pain.
He looked around the room. There was a bedpan in the corner, which he assumed had been under him while he slept. Otherwise, the room was bare.
He walked to the door and found it unlocked, as he’d assumed it would be. He entered a larger space, filled with the kind of furnishings he had seen in the Great Ones’ palace, but never anywhere else.
“You’re up!” Opellius called from across the room.
“Aye.”
“You haven’t told me your name.”
“I’m called Nathaniel.”
“Well, Nathaniel, are you up for a stroll?”
Nathaniel shrugged. “I suppose.”
Opellius led the way out of the building. They were in a grassy field. The woods grew heavy on all sides.
“Where are we?” Nathaniel asked.
“This is my home,” Opellius said. He walked to a path leading into the wilderness, and Nathaniel followed.
“I didn’t know there was anything out here,” Nathaniel said. “I always believed—”
“That you and your people were alone?” Opellius finished. “I assume that’s the reason the walls were erected in the first place.”
“The walls were supposed to have been built by the gods,” Nathaniel said. “Old man Klaus and the baby Christ.”
“Well, that’s different,” Opellius said. “But never mind the specifics of your belief system. Your tone tells me that you never truly believed in that anyway.”
“Perhaps not. I don’t know. What I do know is I have lost much of late, and I am on a journey to find the truth…so that what I lost will not be in vain.”
“I see,” Opellius said. “Well, I don’t know who built the walls, nor do I know who built the place I call home. I found it a long time ago. It was in disrepair, but the hive mind helped me to fix it. They maintain it still. They can do other tasks as well.” He grabbed the edge of his robe and held it out as evidence of his point. “Let’s keep moving.”
They entered a small clearing. In it was a lone metal bench, painted white, with an intricate pattern of flowers built into the back. Opellius pointed at it. “Sit. This is my thinking place, and it seems only right I share it with you.”
Nathaniel sat down, and Opellius sat next to him. “You speak my language,” Nathaniel said. “The language of the prophet, you called it. So you know of Weber.”
“Not really,” Opellius said. “I realize you must look at me as some gift from the divine, in that I speak your tongue. You think I’ll have the answers you seek.”
“But you don’t.”
“No, I’m afraid not. I know of your prophet because I and my helpers have wandered near the wall and overheard conversation over the years.”
“Your helpers…the ‘hive mind.’ Those creatures resemble mutants that live in caves within the walls.”
“There are monsters out here as well. It is my belief that they were originally human but something changed them.”
“What was it?” Nathaniel asked.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I don’t have many answers. I don’t even know how I came to be here. I always imagined I was from your territory. But perhaps I was exiled. At least that’s the deranged fantasy that always made sense to me.”
“You couldn’t be. I barely survived the fall from the top of the wall.”
Opellius laughed. “True. And my helpers certainly could not have survived. But I could.”
Nathaniel stared at him. “You have the power to survive such damage?”
Opellius nodded. “I have always had great power. It’s how the ‘mutants’ as you call them were unable to kill me.”
Nathaniel felt his jaw open in shock. “You’re a Great One!”
“Is that what that means? I had heard the term through the wall and had always wondered. There are others like us?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “I am the last from within the wall.”
“Curious,” Opellius said. “I often wondered whether I could die. I have experienced weakness.”
“Weakness?”
Opellius smiled. “Look into my eyes, Nathaniel. What do you see?”
Nathaniel stared into the man’s face. Opellius’s eyes were a filmy gray, not altogether unlike the skin tone of his helpers.
“You’re blind,” Nathaniel declared.
“I am,” Opellius agreed. “For quite some time now, though not all that long in the scope of my life. And now I know where that road ends. I will die.”
“You say that with almost a satisfaction.”
“I have lived a very long time, Nathaniel, as I’m sure you can relate. I don’t know about your life, but mine has been one of abject loneliness, surrounded only by the hive mind. I grew up with some lingering remnants of our language in my mind, and I learned the rest by my trips to the wall. How I wanted to be on that other side! To speak with and interact with others!” He sighed.
“The other side is a lie,” Nathaniel said. “The Authority keeps us prisoner. Even those like you and me.”
“And you would seek the truth?” Opellius inquired.
“Aye. As I said, I would see things set right. And I would see the leaders of the Authority roasted on a spit in their town square.”
“How do you figure on getting back into your territory?” Opellius asked.
“I don’t know. Why do you call it that?”
“What?”
“Territory. You say it as if there are more out there.”
“I believe there are,” Opellius said. “I believe there is more to this world than one walled-in land and these endless woods.”
Nathaniel thought to say that he doubted such a thing could be true, but then what did he really know of the world anymore?
“But you haven’t seen other territories?” he asked.
“No. I have heard tell of them from the hive mind. They are connected to others of their kind for a great distance around and they tell of other walls.”
Nathaniel stood. “Then we will find them. We will learn what secrets they hide.”
Opellius shook his head. “I’m sorry, Nathaniel. You are welcome to stay here as long as you like, and leave when you like. I have told my helpers that you are not a threat to them. But I can’t come with you. I am of no use to anyone outside my home and my one path that I have committed to memory. A blind man will be no asset to you against the unknown.”
“I will stay for two days, to heal and prepare for the journey. Perhaps in that time you’ll reconsider.”
“I won’t,” Opellius said gently. “But I will help your preparations however I can.”
6
Nathaniel intended to wait out the two days as promised, but by the day after his talk with Opellius, he was pacing the edge of the woods.
“My helpers say you’re eager to move on,” Opellius called to him.
“I am. Your hospitality has been more than generous but it’s time.”
“I understand.”
Nathaniel walked over to Opellius and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Can’t I convince you to join me?”
“How I wish. Had you come along a hundred cycles ago I would relish the opportunity. But my home is here among the hive mind. They will pass along a message to their brethren that you are to be given free passage wherever your wanderings take you, but be warned, there are other things that lurk in the world and I can’t help you with them.”
The man whistled, and five of the hive mind came out of the house.
“Gunatris mayharn,” Opellius said to them. “Sulvas aventar.”
The five chittered and ran back inside. They returned a moment later carrying a large canteen, a hefty sack, and a
short spear.
“We prepared these for your journey,” Opellius said.
“Thank you,” Nathaniel replied, “but I can’t carry that weapon with me.”
“You’ll need to hunt when the food in your sack is gone. I know our kind, and I understand you can live a long time without sustenance, but it wouldn’t be a life that would serve you well. Hold out your arms.”
Nathaniel did as asked. Two of the hive mind approached him and pulled a band of animal hide over his shoulders. One slipped the spear into the band and down Nathaniel’s back.
“That will do quite well,” Nathaniel said. “Thank you again.” Nathaniel took Opellius’ right hand in both of his own and raised it in a praying gesture. “Be well, Opellius.”
“And you, Nathaniel. Perhaps your travels will take you this way again.”
“Aye. When I return to lay siege to the land of lies and its Authority.”
Opellius nodded. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Nathaniel turned to the woods. He saw the cursed wall towering above everything in the distance, and he turned his back to it. His answers would be found elsewhere. He gave a brief wave of his hand, though the hive mind didn’t seem to understand the gesture, and Opellius couldn’t see it. Then he walked into the woods.
Nathaniel had prepared himself for endless, uninterrupted trees as he continued on his march away from the “territory” that had been his home. He was so lost in his thoughts, so overwhelmed by the tragedies that had been visited on those he loved and the revelations that his time with Opellius had uncovered, he walked nearly half a mile before realizing he was walking on unusual soil.
The ground had the familiar patches of grass and weeds, and tan dirt in between, but here and there were scattered dark blemishes of a sort he’d never encountered. He crouched down and brushed away some of the dust. He found he could maneuver his fingers under a spot and remove it from the earth.
It was a rock, he thought, but of what kind? It was black as night, save for the dirt caught in its crevices. He examined the area around him. The pieces created a path through the woods, though trees erupted here and there and the ground had swallowed up many of them.
Someone had once made a road out of that black substance, he thought. He stood up and pivoted to follow the makeshift path.
For all the mystery he had uncovered within the walls, the land outside held even more curiosity. Still, nothing was as curious or as meaningful as the object Liam had discovered beneath the stump.
He kept on, covering miles before he stopped to consume some of the food he’d been provided. The hive mind had prepared some type of orange vegetable and a very hard, crusty bread. That the creatures could bake surprised him, but then they did have Opellius to teach them what he gleaned from his wanderings near the wall.
The food was not very good, but he ate it anyway, and washed it down with a gulp of water from the canteen. He had found the water at Opellius’s house delicious, and had meant to ask about its source but had forgotten in his rush to leave.
Several hours had passed when he heard a roaring sound. He left the path of broken black stone and followed the sound. It grew louder and louder, and suddenly he came to the edge of the land. Three feet below him was water, and nothing like the ponds he had seen in the woods in his many travels around what he had known of the world. This was a vastness he had never encountered. He could see the other side, several hundred feet away, but this water moved as if pushed on by some outside force. It lapped around rocks and poured down small hills.
Nathaniel sat on the edge of the ground, his feet dangling above the rampaging water. He reached behind him and removed the spear. He lowered it into the water and watched as the liquid wrapped around the wood and reformed after passing it. He saw fish swimming by. At least that much was familiar to him from the ponds, and it would be a better source of food than what the hive mind had provided, generous though they had been.
He stabbed the spear into the water and brought it back up with the twitching form of a large yellow and orange fish impaled on it. He stood up to find a place to make camp, and heard a growl.
A short distance away he saw a pack of dogs, but these were larger, shaggier, and appeared far more vicious than the docile creatures he knew. The dogs growled again, a low, rumbling chorus, and flecks of foam escaped the sides of their mouths.
“Easy, boys,” Nathaniel said. “There is nothing for you here.”
He considered that the dogs might want his fish, and considered further giving it to them, but what would that solve? They would continue to pursue anything he caught.
He backed away from the pack, trying to create enough space between himself and them to allow for a sprint down the banks of the water.
One of the dogs sprang forward, and the others followed. Nathaniel spun the spear around with the fish still on the pointed end and hit the first dog hard enough to send it sprawling behind the pack.
The others descended on him at the same time, biting and clawing. He dropped the spear, useless as it was in such close quarters, and took hold of the dogs with his bare hands. He killed two of them, but the others continued to bite. He fell to his back and kicked the remaining dogs away. The force knocked him backwards and he fell into the water. He swam with the current of the water and worked his way to the far side.
He pulled himself to shore, and realized he’d left all his possessions on the other side. He saw the remaining dogs tearing into the fish on his spear. He looked down and took account of the many small puncture wounds on his arms, legs and torso.
Opellius had warned that there were challenges in the wilderness, and he had just encountered one of them. He had survived, yes, but it would be wise to avoid injury as much as possible. He couldn’t anticipate what awaited him, and it would be best to be as close to full strength as he could manage.
He placed the water and the violent dogs behind him and continued on his way. On the far side of the water there was no trace of the black stone. Back to the endless woods, then.
He walked for the remainder of the day, his thoughts about setting up camp early completely forgotten. When the sun moved below the horizon, he sat against the trunk of a tree and closed his eyes. He didn’t need the sleep, even with his wounds from the dogs, but he valued the chance to unwind. The dark was quiet, and nothing disturbed his rest. Even the skeeters seemed to be absent in this new part of the world.
Not new, he remembered. Only new to you.
In the morning he began again. By midday he saw what he had been searching for. A wall, just like the one he had left behind, stood ominous in the distance.
Nathaniel took a deep breath. He didn’t know how to get over the wall, and even if he could, he didn’t know how to get back out. The memory of Achmis’s sacrifice was all too vivid.
He walked around the wall, studying the surface. It was identical to the one around the world he knew. Unnaturally smooth.
He saw something glimmering in the sun near the base of the wall. He walked over and saw a pile of dead leaves. And through the pile…something. He pushed the leaves aside and revealed a metal grate. It was heavily rusted, with a large padlock on one side. Nathaniel slipped his fingers into the openings, tightened his grip, and pulled upward. The metal squealed and the padlock cracked. It was much more damaged than he’d anticipated.
Beneath the grate was a hole, at least ten feet deep. The rusted remains of a ladder, now unusable, stuck out of one side. Nathaniel dropped into the opening, landing in a crouch at the bottom. The floor of the hole was a smooth concrete, like the wall itself, and it opened into a low path leading directly under the wall.
Nathaniel wondered if such an opening existed in his own wall. Had a way in and out been there all along?
He bent and walked into the tunnel. It went on quite a few feet beyond what he imagined was the limit of the wall, and then ended in a pit similar to the one he had just left. The ladder in this pit still retained some of its rungs. He cl
imbed up, listening for sounds of trouble above and hearing none. He wondered about the nature of these dual pits and their connecting tunnel. The opening outside the wall had been padlocked. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for someone inside to unlock the grate. Someone had locked the denizens of this territory in, and not recently, judging from the condition of it.
The grate above him was not rusted, and it wasn’t padlocked either. Nathaniel pushed it open easily and climbed out.
He was still in the woods, though that was no surprise. The woodlands led to the wall on most sides of his home territory. If this place was anything like the world he had known, there would be a series of enclaves for him to encounter before long.
There was no scaffolding along this side of the wall, and no guard presence either. It occurred to him that the very existence of the platforms around the wall made no sense. With no platforms, nobody could scale the wall. That meant they were there as…what? A challenge? A mockery? An excuse to bring charges against those who would otherwise consider escape impossible?
Anything seemed possible, now that the veil had been lifted from his eyes.
Nathaniel considered his options. He could move toward the center of the territory. Depending on its vastness, that could be a very long travel by foot. He could explore enclaves as he came about them. Investigate the similarities and differences, and find out what the people in this territory knew of the true world.
No. That kind of exploration was tantalizing but was nothing more than a distraction. He needed something more.
“Who goes there?”
Nathaniel spun in the direction of the voice. A guard stood watching him. The man was dressed strangely. His pants were tighter than anything Nathaniel had seen a man wear, and of a strange blue fabric. He wore a thin shirt with the sleeves cut above the elbows. The only thing familiar was the weapon of long ago that the man held at his side.
“Who are you?” the man demanded.
“You’re with the Authority?” Nathaniel asked.
“You don’t get to ask questions here, pal. Who are you and what are you doing around the wall?”
The Magic Book Page 5
