Outcast_Keepers of the Stone_Book One

by Andrew Anzur Clement

  “Yes, I am,” she responded. As Malka did so, she moved to help her newfound local guide unstrap the horses from their wagon.

  The felinoid glowered at her.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled at them.

  Without looking up from his work, the disheveled Indian answered.

  “The wagon. It makes tracking us too simple.”

  This response caused Liza to direct her gaze towards Malka.

  “What about its cargo? You’re just going to leave it after all this?”

  “No,” the blue-eyed girl replied.

  “Then what? What if he wants it?”

  In response, Malka moved to the back of the carriage. She extracted a ream of US bank notes from one of the erstwhile rabbit cages. Turning, the girl showed it to the bedraggled man.

  “Do these have meaning for you?”

  “None.”

  “Really? I’m just supposed to trust that?” Liza retorted.

  “If you are what you have shown yourself to be, yes,” he rasped. The man had finished untangling horses from the trappings that had bound them to the wagon. He also had mounted three of the animals with canvas bags, though no saddles were to be found. He turned and nodded to Malka.

  “Fill these bags with all of the white man’s paper that you can. You may need it,” he instructed.

  The Thag moved to comply. The ‘paper,’ as he had called it, had never held much of a meaning for her either; the girl appreciated the manner in which he referred to it.

  “Seriously?” Liza yelled again. “Malka! You’re playing right into his hands.”

  The black-haired felinoid found herself ignored by her charge. Incensed, she moved toward the girl, grabbing her by the shoulders as the Thag had just finished filling one of the bags with her latest haul of cash.

  “Malka, this is insane,” she hissed only a few inches from the girl’s face. Liza glared directly into her eyes.

  “You’re disregarding your most important duty just to help rescue someone who promised his allegiance to us and then crossed us in the hope that he could get away with it.”

  The girl considered Liza’s words for a moment, backing up as though she needed space to think.

  “Yes, he did. But he never asked to come with us.”

  At this, the eyebrows on the white-skinned figure’s forehead raised. She leaned forward toward the darker-skinned girl in a gesture of disbelief.

  “‘Never asked?’ For the sake of all perdition, Malka! You kidnapped him!”

  This time Malka did not wait to respond.

  “He had nowhere else to go; we both know it.”

  Liza threw her hands out to her sides in exasperation.

  “Well! Apparently he didn’t realize that! He gave us his word and then he used us. Used us. For betrayal. So, despite your assessment, I can only conclude that he must really have thought that he had some greener pasture to fly off to!”

  Malka looked her recalcitrant companion directly in the eye, meeting Liza’s accusation with one of her own.

  “Maybe, but it didn’t work, did it?”

  Liza’s hands made an emphatic downward motion in front of her, in an attempt to emphasize her point.

  “So what?”

  “So, I’m going after him. I am still a Thag. I can keep what I carry safe.”

  “Damn it, Malka! We should have killed him. Instead, he tried to escape! Why do this?”

  The Thag stared at Liza pointedly.

  After a beat, a sad but knowing smile crossed the felinoid’s face; she let out a short harrumph as if just realizing something that was so simple, but had only come to her in that moment.

  “No. You respect him more for it...don’t you?”

  Without responding, Malka – the loading of the horses finished – moved to mount the one nearest her. The older Indian man did the same. Yet, Liza remained in place. With her head, Malka motioned to the horse behind her, indicating that her protector should climb onto it.

  Liza remained squarely where she was.

  “I’m not nearly done!” She let out a sharply exasperated exhale before continuing: “So fine, we go on this harebrained expedition to rescue one whose main contribution, thus far, has been to dupe us.” Another slight pause, this time meant to make a point. “But you’re taking that guy?” Liza pointed to the white-haired, bearded native who sat mounted next to Malka. “I get that you might have some weird attachment to Henry, given your background. But there is no way that you are going to convince me trusting him is a good idea. Look at what he just tried to do!”

  “Before that, he saved us from the Urumi.”

  “He still tried to kill you. And he wasn’t all that easily talked out of it.”

  Again, Malka glared at her.

  “Maybe he found some reason not to. Those can be quite compelling.” The Thags’ leader paused for a second. Liza took advantage, pouncing.

  “For hell’s sake! ‘Maybe he’s not going to kill us on a whim.’ That’s your answer? Do you have any clue how stu….”

  The letter wafted down between where Liza was standing and the horse on which Malka sat. Immediately, the green-eyed girl moved to pick it up. As she read it, a brief victorious smile passed across her face, followed by a short sound that was something between a laugh and a hollow bark.

  “What is it?” Malka snapped.

  “Instructions. From the Society.” Liza practically purred the words. “Apparently your latest little escapade is off. Time to get serious, Malka.” Walking towards the horse on which Malka perched herself, the felinoid handed over the letter.

  Malka took in the paper. It contained an embossment of a snake eating its own tail. Below it a short message read:

  Continue eastward.

  Do what must be done to protect the object.

  I have told you:

  Arguing during tactical crises is counterproductive. Stop it.

  - Arunesh.

  Almost immediately, Malka responded.

  “What of it? We are still going.”

  “No. We’re not. You read the letter. If you can’t change course now, then you seriously have got to get your priorities in order.”

  In response, Malka turned to the older man, who had watched their entire exchange in silence. He had also failed to react to the letter falling out of thin air, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

  “New York. It is east of here?” the girl asked.

  “It is. But I cannot take you directly there before you reach your deadline.”

  At this, Malka’s brow furrowed.

  “Then how….”

  The man nodded slowly. He raised his left hand, pointing to the tall mountain range that lay ahead of them.

  “My tribe’s ancestral lands lay over those mountains. I know them well; I will guide you. But, after we cross them, you must go the rest of the way yourselves, by train.”

  “I understand,” the Thag replied. She turned to Liza:

  “It would seem, Liza, that my goals and the Society’s coincide.”

  “Oh, please. There was nothing in what Arunesh sent us – ever – about kidnapping a hapless boy. Let alone taking the added effort and risk to rescue him from those who seek the object that you carry. You know why they’ve taken him. He’s bait.”

  “There was nothing in that letter which forbade it, either. But, I am rather certain that your further retorts do constitute arguing during a tactical crisis.” Malka allowed the luxury of a taunting smile to play briefly across her lips.

  Reluctantly, Liza moved toward one of the two remaining horses. But, she stopped again, looking past her charge to the brown-skinned man who sat still mounted with a stoic expression on his face.

  “Fine. Okay. But first, you will give me one good reason why we can trust him.” The felinoid motioned past Malka with her chin toward the disheveled figure who sat mounted next to her.

  The Thag appeared to consider the matter. The warning system that Husain had taught her to
trust – a sinking feeling in her belly – had not become active upon meeting the man, despite the manner in which she had met him. Yet, she could not deny that there was a certain, un-ignorable logic to Liza’s demand. Moments ago, this man had been ready to kill her. Now, he stood ready to help without question. Malka mulled over the seeming dichotomy of action and motive for a moment before turning to him with a definitive but questioning mien:

  “Why are you helping me?”

  The man seemed to sigh with the weight of years before responding. In truth, he could not have been much over thirty years old. But, the wear and tear on his body from a life spent alone and out of doors made him appear far older.

  “The mark you were given.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did your Master award it to you?”

  “Because he judged me to be my Sect’s most able warrior, though I was not one of them.” Malka let out a sigh.

  “Yet, you have fought for them?”

  “Yes. In a way.”

  The Indian man regarded her for a moment. Then he said, softly:

  “It means you have known death.” There was no question in the man’s voice. Instead, it was a statement of knowing.

  “Y-yes,” Malka stuttered. Her voice was almost a whisper. “You knew?”

  The man nodded slowly a few times before answering. As he did so, a rush of memories flooded through his mind. Recollections that defined him, but ones that he had tried to forget. They were of the first time he had seen a man killed. It had been during his first battle. He’d come face to face with a soldier of enlisted rank. As a young man, he had frozen, unsure of what to do and hesitant to kill another human being. The uniformed man had been about to kill him when a fellow tribesman’s ax suddenly embedded itself in the soldier’s forehead. In that moment, he had stared death in the face. He had sat down on the ground, covering his face in with his hands, as if trying to support the burden of it. Shortly thereafter, the army of that man he had seen killed had found his tribe and taken them. He had been one of the very few escapees. So much had happened since. But, in his mind, it had all started with that ax. It was the weapon he used to this day in honor and defense of the people he had lost.

  “My people. They worship the same blade,” he said at last. “They are gone as well. We follow the same fate. I help you because we understand each other’s suffering.”

  A part of Malka wondered if she could believe the veracity of what the older man had told her. What could he know of my life? she reasoned. The Thag could not deny that, from his manner, he fathomed the split-second difference that could lie between killing and leniency: the burden of knowing death, the aftermath of feeling culpability for it, the weight of emptiness, stemming from the loss of one’s only family. Finally, she recognized in him the audacious hope that by doing something – anything – the relative contentment she had known, before all of that happened, just might possibly be regained.

  “I trust him,” Malka said to Liza. “Now, come, or stay here.”

  The felinoid directed her gaze skyward, as if hoping that some divine force would rescue her from what she clearly still considered to be madness. For a short beat, she focused her eyes on Malka, appearing as if she were about to embark on another rant in an attempt to instruct the girl in the error of her ways. Then she sighed, as if deciding it was pointless. The black-haired girl scowled; she chose how to phrase her lack of approval regarding her charge’s selected course of action. Slowly shaking her head, Liza growled, finally settling on two words that summed up her opinion and resignation into exactly four mumbled syllables:

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  Again, the felinoid moved toward one of the two remaining horses, which were tethered together. She mounted it. The caravan set out towards the mountains. While the Thag and the older man rode alongside one another, the third of the trio maintained a close but skeptical distance behind them.

  As they moved, Malka turned to the Indian and spoke in a soft voice.

  “I apologize for Liza’s attitude. I know that you have your own reasons. All of us do. But I believe that you are trying to help.”

  The man let out a quick breath, as if finding some sad humor in the statement. As their horses plodded forward, he responded:

  “It is the way of her kind. After what they have been through, I do not take it as an insult.” He paused for a moment, leaving a companionable silence. Then he asked, almost as if begging a response, “Is there anything else I can do to aid in your journey?”

  Malka turned to regard him with a mild sort of admiration.

  “Actually, there is one thing.”

  “Name it.”

  “What you do, when you throw the ax.”

  “Yes? What of it? ”

  “Teach me.”

  Twenty-Five

  The steep valley of the Sarine River lay before the town that rose upon the hill of its opposite side. At its peak lay the singular steeple of St. Nicholas Catholic Church. Fresh sunlight bathed the entire view as seen from Stanislaw Tarkowski’s vantage point.

  It was spring. Or it should have been spring. Yet, with it being almost the end of April, the Egypt-born youth noticed that the average temperature seemed to rise only marginally above the levels he had experienced during winter. The sun was out, at least. And it stayed risen for far longer than Stas could ever remember it having done so in any place where he had previously lived. Still, it seemed to provide precious little warmth.

  Stas sat looking back at the town of Fribourg, his back reposed against a tree trunk. Even as the sun’s rays did what little they could to warm him, he felt nothing.

  He had tried not to, since the moment he had found out. Instead, in the days after he had learned of Nell’s death, her closest friend had devoted himself completely to his studies. Having begun as an awkward new arrival, Stas was now widely recognized to be the most achieved student at the cathedral’s school.

  He didn’t care.

  To Stas, the schoolwork had become a kind of balm, the most convenient means at hand to take his mind off the reality of Nell’s loss. Even now, as he allowed himself what he had intended to be a momentary respite, the accusations returned to his mind:

  You were supposed to protect her. You knew each other. Instead, you abandoned her. She died alone. And here you are…

  He tilted his head back, looking skyward through branches of the tree under which he sat. A few clouds could be seen. The branches had barely begun to sprout, despite what Stas imagined as customary for the time of year.

  ...failure, the voice finished.

  There was no visible reaction that could be seen in Stas’s outward demeanor at his own mind’s accusation. Truth be told, he had grown accustomed to that voice. It was the same one that had been there ever since Nell’s passing. It was the same augur that came to haunt him during every waking moment when he had not been able to find something to occupy his mind. During those many nights, he had been left completely without sleep. He had finally given in to the comforting shortsightedness of study, until exhaustion.

  Stas knew that to most, matriculation was considered a step towards a brighter future. That was no longer how he viewed it. Nell was gone. He could not help but feel some responsibility for it. And, where did that leave him?

  Even as such a thought wafted through his head, he berated himself for the selfish conceit of its arrogance. Such a trait had always been a part of his personality, he knew. Never had the son of the Polish refugee considered it as such. Concerning the past, in fact, the youth considered the assuredness it provided him to be a source of strength. Stas could not – no, did not – want to consider that the questioning of his own station in life, to which his current circumstances had brought him unwillingly, also carried a profound sense of dread regarding his future.

  Future? What future? Where will you live it? With whom? Ha! the voice returned to mock him.

  Again, no outward reaction could be discerned from the youth, who had on
ce dreamed that bigger things could be wrought from the ashes of a simple kidnapping.

  Honestly, Stas had to admit, the future had come to hold little interest for him. Precisely the opposite, in fact. Nothing that came into his mind’s eye, as he had tried to sleep over the past months, had come even close to enthusing him. Instead, those thoughts had inspired what could only be described as existential foreboding.

  Stas sighed deeply, shutting his eyes momentarily. He had hoped that coming here after the weather had begun to warm, ever so slightly, would take his mind from the dull rigors of his studies, or from the loss that always stood ready to torment him in their absence.

  The sound of another person trudging up the slope toward his general location reached Stas’s ears. He opened his eyes and angled his head upwards and to his right. His field of vision thus moved so as to ascertain that it was Jurgen. The young Tarkowski sighed again.

  Over the months since he had heard about what happened to Nell, Stas had been quite industrious. Yet, by his own admission, he had not been what one would have called easy to live with. Jurgen had been formal. However, the native had made it more and more clear to Switzerland’s new arrival that he was growing weary of his behavior.

  At first, the Swiss German had tried to continue to integrate Stas with the other German speakers at the school. And, eventually, anyone he had known at all. But, the Slav had elected to keep to himself. The last thing he wanted was to be a charity case. And yet, that was just what they all had made him feel like – at best.

  After all, Stas reasoned, I’m only here because my father’s Swiss friend decided to do ‘us’ a favor. Of course, as if I just couldn’t wait to get out of Africa, or India. So, after I have…. What? Nell is dead. And these people offer my future?

  As Jurgen approached, Stas took a deep breath and turned to face him. The born citizen of the Helvetic Republic spoke first:

  “Stanislas, what are you doing here?” Jurgen was dressed in a suit and spoke in French. Though Stas continued to excel in his theoretical studies of High German, he had shrunk from speaking it with his roommate. Honestly, French had occupied enough mental effort, though it had not quite allowed the Slav to keep his mind from what had happened to Nell. Further, Jurgen had stopped asking how Stas was doing weeks ago. He had quickly learned that it would earn him only a disinterested “assez bien” for his query’s trouble.