by Donald Brown
“So she is fine then!” exclaimed Tom, trying to act sober. He appeared to be genuinely relieved though.
Dorothy was disconcerted by this reaction, peering at him through puffy eyelids, almost like she thought he was making a bad joke.
“No!” Dorothy said fiercely, in between sobs. “She… has… been stabbed.”
Frieda hurled Tom a disgusting look of Now-look-what-you-have-done, as Dorothy started to cry more profusely.
“Hang on,” Tom stated, wobbling a bit and taking hold of a table to steady himself. He appeared to be slightly flustered at the negative glares he was receiving. “You said that she was lying beneath a tree, you said nothing about a stabbing.”
One of the other men growled: “Except for the part where she entered this tavern and said her daughter had been stabbed, you fool.”
Tom didn’t seem to hear him. He was looking around for support, but was only met by hostile faces. “She said she was lying beneath a tree, didn’t she?” he tried again.
A large man behind him thumped him in the ribs with his elbow. “You will soon be ‘lying’ under a tree of you don’t shut the hell up.”
Tom took one look at the size of the man and resorted to mumbling to himself, too low for anyone to hear.
“I mean it is all my fault…” Dorothy continued, still in between tears. “There was the curse… and then the Brotherhood…”
“Do you think the Black Knight did it?” Frieda wanted to know.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Mr. Meyers added. He had been strangely quiet throughout all of this, his expression unreadable.
Some in the pub took this news with a pinch of salt. After all, there were some tensions in Zion, but other than that, the people of Zion got on very well with each other and they were not used to murders, especially not anything like the ghastly one just described by Ms. Kuttle.
“I don’t buy it,” a barrel-chested man said. “She is just making this up to get our attention.”
Frieda looked at him in indignation. “Are you saying she is making up that her child has been stabbed for attention?” she asked incredulously.
“I mean come on, Frieda,” he continued, undeterred, “who will stab a five-year-old in Zion?”
Frieda couldn’t think of an answer to this.
“The woods, beyond the fence?” Solomon the barman enquired, still holding the pint he had been filling. “Isn’t that close to where the witch now lives?”
Everyone exchanged dark looks. The implication was clear.
“Wait a moment,” Tom started again, “you don’t think… she killed her?”
Everyone rolled their eyes.
“I told you this would happen!” a man shouted from the bar counter, banging his fist on the wooden surface. “It was only a matter of time before she–”
“All right! All right!” Frieda snapped, “but I don’t think this is the time to be discussing this.”
There followed a tense silence as even Dorothy stopped crying to peep at the two glowering at each other.
Then the sheriff, who had remained silent through all of this, suddenly rose to his feet and said, “Shouldn’t we’all go and find her, Dorothy? She might still be alive. You spoke about stab wounds but that doesn’t necessarily imply death, you know?”
Dorothy shook her head. Whether she simply knew it was fatal or whether she didn’t want to see her child in that state again, she didn’t exactly know.
Frieda took hold of her shoulders. “Come on Dorothy!” she urged. “We have to go back. We can still save the child, no matter how small the chance is, you owe it to her!”
Dorothy stood up, her eyes red. “You’re right,” she said in a trembling voice. “You’re right!” she added more forcefully. She had become so subservient to the will of the curse, that she hadn’t bothered to consider that her daughter could still be saved. “Let us go back.”
“Who is joining us?” the sheriff asked.
Now that everyone knew where the girl was, they were uneasy of entering the witch’s den. There came a chorus of protests.
“Would love to go, but the storm and… the witch.”
“Are we actually going to her place?”
“We will need to be armed to the teeth!”
Mr. Meyers beheld them incredulously. “Come on men!” he exclaimed, “what is wrong with you? Do you actually believe this co-called witch can cast spells?”
Nobody answered, most of them not even meeting Mr. Meyers’s eyes. That wasn’t really the reaction he expected.
“I, for one, am staying here!” Tom shouted, to no one in particular.
Most of them didn’t seem to mind that. If anything, it only encouraged people to leave the tavern and rather face the storm and the witch.
As soon as the sheriff had alerted the other guards in Zion – using a teenage boy as a messenger – more than half of the of the Roasting Boar’s patrons felt safe to join and a manhunt ensued. People got up and followed Dorothy, Frieda, the sheriff and Mr. Meyers outside.
They were all going back for Yara.
30
Hadrian stared at Storm in shock, or what appeared to be shock, as Storm could barely make out his brother’s face in the semi-darkness.
Then a resounding bang from behind made them both jump, and suddenly extinguished any light left in the tunnel. The sound reverberated across the tunnel, which in turn made Storm and Hadrian peer around in fear, even though they could scarcely see anything. When nothing materialised, there was complete silence. And then–
“What was that?” Hadrian asked.
“I closed the door,” the Outsider replied in the darkness. “You people sure know how to make flimsy–”
“We were tricked!” Hadrian interrupted.
“You were not tricked,” the Outsider replied casually.
This was followed by a brief hush and then a light emerged, coming from a portable lantern the Outsider had lit. Storm could see the angst on his brother’s face in the sudden illumination.
“What are we doing here, Outsider?” Hadrian continued, unwilling to let the subject go.
The Outsider paused in his inspection of their surroundings and turned to face the two brothers. He removed his pipe from his bag and lit it once again. After inhaling a few puffs of smoke, he blew out in Hadrian’s direction. “You wanted to escape,” he said slowly, the pipe still in his mouth, “and this is the only way. Back there, they would have ripped you and your brother’s heads off… my name is Jasper by the way,” he added as an afterthought.
“This is the tunnel!” Hadrian seethed, throwing his arms around him, as if Jasper was struggling to see where they were. “We are not… supposed… to be here!” he added in mock imitation of Jasper’s slow voice.
“You were not supposed to kill that Peacekeeper either,” Jasper retorted, “but nothing stopped you from doing that, did it? And now you have to listen to me: If you want to stay alive, you’d better forget about all those stupid rules in Sanctuary.”
Hadrian appeared to be taken aback by the response, as if he had forgotten his earlier crime.
It seemed like Jasper regarded his silence as surrender. “Rest assured,” he said, “this is the only way out of Sanctuary that I know of. Now, are we going to move on or not?” Without waiting for a reply, Jasper carefully began to tread down the tunnel, directing the light in his right hand, while scanning the ground and walls for any signs of danger. In his left hand, he still held his smoking pipe, which he brought to his mouth every now and again.
Storm had been silent during the entire exchange, frowning, but he was as terrified as Hadrian. He stared at the dark door in longing, as if he had violated a pact with everything beyond it and now knew that Sanctuary could no longer provide him with the security it used to.
Somewhere outside, far off, Storm could hear the sound of creatures he had never heard before. He shuddered as a cold shiver trickled down his spine.
“Boy-150,” Hadrian whispered,
his voice quivering, “we have to go back. We have to.”
Storm heard this, but slowly and resignedly shook his head.
“Are you crazy?” Jasper called from ten yards away, whirling around and giving voice to Storm’s thoughts. “They… are… going… to… kill… you. What part of that don’t you understand?”
Hadrian stood there, clearly conflicted. Storm knew that his brother would have preferred death at that moment, but having saved Storm’s life, his death would now be dishonourable in his mind. He could either die in disgrace or take the road he was forbidden to follow; the road where their slim hope of staying alive lay in the words of an Outsider and an old book that could have been a fake.
“We have no choice,” Storm told Hadrian, patting his shoulder, “we have to follow him.”
Now it was Hadrian’s turn to start sobbing. “What have we done?” he choked. “We were such a good Sanctuarian and now we have thrown it all away. How are we going to survive on our own? How?”
“We will have to manage somehow,” Storm replied, desperately trying not to burst out in tears himself. He wanted to console his brother, but he didn’t know how to do it. He had never felt comfortable in emotional situations like this.
Jasper steered himself back towards them and put his arm around Hadrian’s shoulders, applying enough gentle force to push him forward. “Come on, kid,” he said. “You did nothing wrong. That was just a psychotic society, any reasonable person would have disobeyed an order to kill his own brother. Where I am taking you, you will find a new home, I promise.”
“We don’t need your pity!” Hadrian snapped, throwing Jasper’s arm off him and angrily wiping away his tears with the sleeve of his robe.
Jasper’s black eyes smoldered for a moment, but then he relaxed. “You can do this,” he continued, his voice still calm, “but it will require utter discipline and focus. We have to get through the tunnel before the end of the day, otherwise the Sanctuarians are going to find us. Perhaps they believe we are still hiding somewhere in the Mountain. When they realize that we are on the outside, they will send a squad to catch us.”
They stared for a moment at each other in silence.
“Let’s go,” Jasper once again iterated. And with that he trundled down the tunnel on his own.
Storm hesitated for just a tiny moment before walking after him.
“Storm,” Hadrian said desperately.
Storm turned around in surprise. It was the second time in one day that Hadrian had used his real name. They looked at each other in the small strip of light that Jasper’s fading lantern offered them. Seeing the ongoing conflict on his brother’s face, Storm sighed. “Look, Hadrian, we are going with him, whether we like it or not. Sanctuary has offered us nothing and at least there is a chance of a better world out there.” He continued to walk after Jasper and, after a few moments, Hadrian caught up.
Jasper looked over his shoulder and when he noticed they were following him, he smiled in triumph. “Don’t worry,” he said, noticing their alertness, “there is absolutely nothing in here that can harm us.”
“How do you know that?” Storm asked. Although he had been afraid of conversing with people in Sanctuary, he now found that with the Outsider, the perceived lower race, he could easily voice his opinion.
“Because I have travelled through here a thousand times, kid,” Jasper replied, seemingly oblivious to Storm’s insult, but perhaps not to his tone.
Storm snorted, drawing an annoying look from Jasper. He did not like the fact that Jasper referred to him as kid. “Our name is Storm,” he told the Outsider.
Upon hearing the name, Jasper froze in his steps and Storm could clearly see that that name meant something to him. But, then he shook his head and they continued.
Something about Jasper’s voice felt familiar to Storm, he realized as a memory from childhood flooded into his mind…
***
Storm had been playing with some toys when his mother had arrived.
“Storm, darling, I am just going to speak to someone quickly, it’s best that you remain here, O.K? Do you promise me you will stay here?”
Storm had nodded and continued with his toys when his mother had gone to the next room. After a while he’d heard raised voices coming from it.
“You have to leave! You can’t stay here!” the new voice had said, sounding like Jasper’s.
“If there is even the slimmest chance… I can help the situation…” the reply had come from his mother.
“Think about the kids! Do you want them to be raised in such a society?!”
They had continued bickering and then finally the angry voices had stopped, with the slam of a door. His mother had returned to the room Storm was in, slightly teary eyed.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Storm had inquired.
His mother had shaken her head and just replied, “A good friend just said goodbye to me Storm. I hope one day you will have a chance to meet him.”
***
Thinking back about the past thirty minutes of his life, Storm was now in two minds about everything that was happening to him. Even though Jasper had saved them, he knew the Outsiders could not be trusted, or perhaps he was too naïve to even know whether they were in any danger or not. The Sanctuarians had told him that there were beasts in here and he now thought that it would only be a matter of time until they would find some of them.
Next to him, Hadrian appeared to be lost. His eyes were frantically darting about, while his feet were blindly following Jasper. It was almost as if he had lost complete control over his body. The only sign of his distress was coming from the stern expression on his face. Their dire situation seemed to have completely sapped his self-confidence.
After walking for about two miles, Storm began to notice various materials littering the tunnel. Boxes, wood and all kinds of packaging supplies lay strewn on the floor. “What is all this?” he heard himself ask.
Jasper turned his head and said, “There used to be a lot of trade between the outside world and Sanctuary, before they shut down the tunnel.”
This vague response didn’t clarify much. As far as Storm knew, there were still plenty of Outsiders who paid tribute to the Guardian.
Suddenly the lantern revealed what could only be a skeleton, and both Storm and Hadrian shrieked in fright. It wasn’t seeing a skeleton that terrified them. After all, they had seen many dead bodies every day in Sanctuary. No, it was the fact that they found one in the tunnel, which confirmed their suspicions that it was a dangerous place.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Jasper said, fluttering his eyelids. “This guy was killed a very long time ago, in the civil war.”
This did little to comfort the two brothers.
Jasper noticed their hesitation again. “I don’t get it,” he said, giving them a frank stare. “You are afraid of going forward, even though going back means certain death. What are you so scared of? If I were in your place, I would be running from Sanctuary as fast as I could.”
They pondered this for a moment. The question seemed to bamboozle Hadrian, so Storm tried to answer. “I guess it is because we know what to expect when we go back, but this way is uncertain.”
Jasper nodded. “Strange how people’s minds work, isn’t it?”
They gingerly stepped over the skeleton, which had by now been completely cleaned by insects, and continued going forward.
Three hundred yards further, they entered a wider part of the tunnel and was abruptly surrounded by people. This scared both Hadrian and Storm out of their wits for a second time. “What the…” Storm stammered, but Jasper motioned to them that it was all right to proceed.
“It is the Lost,” he informed them. “These people have managed to escape from Sanctuary, but were too scared of the new world to venture further, so they just stayed here. They are torn between two worlds; one they are too afraid of, and the other one that will not allow them to return. Now they are basically, lost, merely waiting to die.”
Storm beheld the Lost as they came forward to touch him with fumbling fingers. They were clearly blind, as if all the years of tunnel life had stolen their vision. The Lost were also blueish-white, the sun having robbed them of their skin color. They truly seemed miserable. Free from the rules of Sanctuary, but without any final destination, they were hopeless.
“Don’t go any further,” one of them whispered while grabbing Storm’s arm and sniffing him like a dog. “It is dangerous; the sun scorches you.” Storm shivered as the ice-cold, bony hand touched him.
“You will be eaten for sure,” another woman warned. She had taken hold of Hadrian’s left elbow with both hands and she was pulling ferociously.
“Don’t listen to them,” Jasper said, pushing his way through the Lost.
“Perhaps they have a point,” Hadrian replied, gazing into the soulless eyes of the petite woman who was hanging onto his arm. Her thinning hair was tucked behind her pointy elf-like ears.
“There are always a hundred reasons not to do something,” Jasper now preached, pushing away another one of the Lost. “Take a look at them. Do you really want to become like that? Half-dead? Then be my guest, stay here.”
“He lies!” the woman hissed. “Why do you trust the Outsider?”
Hadrian would have perhaps bought the idea, had the Lost not been so incredibly pathetic and weak. He shoved her hands from his elbow, while Storm was casting a glance over the Lost. Perhaps the Old Man is here? he thought, but he couldn’t see the Old Man anywhere. This made his mind involuntarily jump to his meeting with the witch in her hut. He wondered whether the witch had actually helped him, whether Jasper worked for her.
“How are you doing, Chief?” Jasper asked as he came to a halt in front of a particular Lost. This man was by far the eldest of them and was sitting perched up on a rock, leaning on a crooked cane. With his murky white eyes (even the irises and the pupils were white) he seemed to have gone completely blind.
