Outcast_Keepers of the Stone_Book One

by Andrew Anzur Clement

  “Looking. Thinking….” Stas sighed at length. He refrained from directing his gaze to the one who had asked him the question.

  “I understand, Stanislas. You are thinking of her, aren’t you? Of what happened.”

  Stas continued to stare up through the trees as his brain processed Jurgen’s statement.

  “How can you.” The Slav heard his voice respond. It was not a question, but rather an accusation.

  “Stanislas, what do you mean?” At first, the slightly stocky Swiss German had been, in his own formal way, sympathetic to Stas. Yet, now with his roommate’s continually closed-off manner, it was growing clear that his patience had begun to grow thin, despite his omnipresent poise.

  For the first time, Stas turned to look directly at the native of Steckborn.

  “I mean...how can you claim to understand what you have not experienced? You don’t know the kind of connection Nell and I shared. And, you cannot.”

  Here, the Swiss German bristled visibly. But, he continued to look Stas directly in the eye. Previously, in the face of this type of sentiment from the non-citizen of his country, he had decided to exercise the better part of valor. In this instance, it seemed clear that Jurgen had decided it was time for him and the morose Slav to have a more in-depth conversation.

  “That does not mean I am incapable of trying, Stanislas.”

  There was a beat.

  “But you don’t,” Stas said at length.

  “Look, Stanislas, I am trying to understand. But, to put it in quite a frank manner, you are not making it easy for me to have to live with you.”

  “Then don’t,” Stas retorted. It was a full minute before either realized what had passed the lips of Nell’s friend.

  “I am sorry. I think I must have misunderstood. I myself am still learning French. Maybe how I understood your statement is a peculiarity of how the language is taught in the English colonies?”

  “You did not. I said: ‘Then don’t.’” Stas’s gaze returned to envelop the skyline of the town. He found it hard to believe that it was his voice that had spoken the words. Beyond their vindictive tenor, the sentiment had not been particularly logical. Yet, despite everything he had been taught about honesty and being an upstanding Polish gentleman, it felt oddly pleasant.

  “Stanislas…,” Jurgen paused, unsure of how to continue.

  Stas ignored him. It wasn’t anything personal. He simply wanted solitude. Time to puzzle out what had happened. Since the kidnapping from Egypt, he had moved almost every year – every few months, really. After leaving Port Said, he had never been at home anywhere. Except when in pursuit of a crisis. Those crises had all been related directly to Nell. He had either freed her, or helped to find her.

  But, she was dead. It was ironic, Stas thought, that he finally had time to think only now. He found it far less fulfilling than he thought it would be. And Jurgen, with his wheedling superiority, would just not leave him alone. In that moment, it had felt good indeed to insult his inquisitor. A well of ire rose in him.

  “Go home.” Stas grated. “Go back to your family. Your house in Steckborn. Go back to your comfortable, secure life!” Stas felt that his words had not grown in volume as he spoke. But, he could feel their intensity rising. “Go back! So I no longer have to pretend that you know everything!”

  The troubled Slav no longer looked at the city in front of him. Instead he directed his sight to a patch of grass that grew towards his left.

  “Stanislas….” There was an edge in Jurgen’s voice, as if he had become quite perturbed by his roommate’s reaction.

  “I must remind you of something. As much as I may want to at this moment, I cannot. The semester has two more months to run.”

  Stas Tarkowski turned to look at his roommate, displaying an air of tired annoyance that he honestly felt. Then, he jerked his head back, allowing the back of his scalp to knock against the tree.

  Staring at the sky, he finally responded:

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “What is bothering you, Stanislas? What is making you act this way? I am Swiss – Schweizerdeutsch – of course. But I could never imagine any civilized person acting as you are now. Maybe, if you would try, there is something you could learn from us.”

  Suddenly, Stas stood up from his resting place. He glowered at Jurgen, directly in the eye. The Swiss stepped back, unused to the intensity he now saw in the self-proclaimed Slav’s eyes. Stas glared at him for a few seconds before he spoke.

  “Do you know what is frightening? You remind me of myself not so long ago. Full of yourself. Your people. Your culture. I was like that, too. I was so sure that the future would reward my faith. My faith in God. In honesty. In chivalry. And for my devotion to the only one like me, with whom I had grown up. Now she is dead. Your culture is the one I have always claimed, aspired to. And yet, you reject me.”

  Another silence. It was clear that Jurgen had reacted to his roommate’s statement almost immediately. However, he struggled with how to phrase his response.

  “But you are not from our culture,” Jurgen blurted finally. His face remained stoic as always. It seemed all the more insulting to Stas that, as he spoke, it was as if the formally dressed youth simply stated facts. “Your father was from east of the Oder. You have never even been to Europe. Why should you not have to aspire to earn our favor?”

  “Because I have been proud of it for all of my life!” yelled Stas. “Not Switzerland specifically, but my native Poland. Yes, I grew up in Africa. But I have always tried to prove myself a true Pole.”

  “Stas. I must be frank. You talk as if your Polishness puts you on a level with us.”

  The Slav, who for the first time was seeing Europe, blinked. Then his gaze narrowed.

  “It does. We share the same religion, the same ethos. You have not gone through the trials that I have. You do not know the losses I have endured.”

  “Then, why do you not look up to us?” It was a simple question. Asked by Jurgen who, internally, wanted to explode.

  He wanted to tell Stas that his own lack of uncivilized experiences was precisely what made him more qualified. He did not know exactly what Stas had experienced, though his roommate apparently believed that his ethnic background had allowed him to hold sway over the savages of Africa. However, it was that same pride in lack of experience that allowed Jurgen to believe he could hold influence over the individual who had migrated into his country.

  Yet, Stas appeared to have other ideas when it came to his own subordination:

  “Because I have gone through so much more than you ever have. Experienced loss, which I know you have never gone through. And, do you know what the saddest thing is? That I do not know what is more wrong: the loss that I have endured, or the fact that you seem to assume it has less value precisely because you are ‘privileged’ enough to have never had the exhilaration of experiencing a life beyond your own borders, nor the joy and sorrow of enduring such a state.” Stas paused for a moment, as if formulating his ire. “Because of that, you think that you are entitled to believe you will never face that fate eventually. You assume that it assures you good fortune and a prosperous future.”

  Stas took a breath, collecting his thoughts. He was not done.

  “You think that who you are should make us…,” he paused as if unsure whom he included in that pronoun, “look up to you and your tiny country? Maybe. Many do...but I do not.”

  Between the two young men, a piece of parchment appeared and lofted to the ground. Stas frowned as he followed it to the grass’ surface. An expression of mild surprise – though clearly not shock or disbelief – passed across his features.

  For his part, Jurgen raised and then furrowed both of his eyebrows in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.

  “Stanislas…,” he asked at length. “What was that?”

  Stas inhaled briefly. The youth attempted to marshal an air of nonchalance before formulating a response, itself in the form of a question.
>
  “You mean that paper?”

  “Yes. How did it get here?”

  “The breeze carried it.”

  “For someone who claims to value honesty so highly, Stanislas, you certainly have no trouble lying. I know what I saw. That piece of paper appeared in thin air directly in front of my eyes.”

  “Jurgen. You’re mistaken.” There was a cautionary note that Stas was unable to keep completely out of his voice.

  Now it was Jurgen’s turn to glare. He did so, before repeating:

  “I know what I saw.”

  As he spoke that sentence, the Swiss youth bent downward quickly. He scooped up the parchment and straightened himself, consulting it as he did so. After no more than a few seconds, the suit-clad youth looked up, fixing his gaze directly on the one he had just accused of lying. There was a new glint of suspicion in his eyes.

  “Stanislas? What is going on?”

  “What do you mean? It’s just a note that got caught in the wind. Why would I know anything about it?” Again, Stas tried to hide his trepidation. He knew that his eyes had told him the same thing that Jurgen’s had. That note had appeared seemingly from nowhere. But, there were other thoughts, connected to that note’s appearance, that Stas did not want to admit, even to himself. He had been told back in Madras that they came from the heads of the Society – the mysterious Arunesh and Zitar. All of his life, he had taken pride in disbelieving such pagan fables. As he had been taught by his father, that was where values such as truthfulness in the Christian faith came from.

  At some point, Stas knew what his senses told him. Yet, more than almost anything, he either wanted to explain rationally or deny the existence of the note that Jurgen now held in his hands.

  “Because I believe it is for you,” the Swiss German responded.

  On some level, Stas had expected this from the moment he had seen the piece of paper appear. Yet, on another, it was the last thing he had wanted to hear. First, the move to Europe, the place he had always looked to as home. But, it had turned out to be stranger for him to navigate than he had anticipated upon arrival. Then, Nell’s loss. After all they had endured, it all seemed so senseless. He willed more than anything that God had a plan, that all of it was still for something. But that was not how recent events had made things look. This letter, which had popped into the air – seemingly by dark arts unknown – was just the latest unwelcome evidence of that.

  “That’s impossible.” It was meant as a denial to Jurgen, but it came out more defensively than what Stas had intended.

  “No. It is for you. Here. Look.”

  The Swiss German handed the paper to the other youth. Stas took it. He noted the disturbingly familiar symbol of the Ouroboros in the upper left-hand corner of its cream-colored fibers. Stas took an involuntary breath in as he processed the text that was printed under it. Trying to hide his reaction, he exhaled slowly as though affecting an exasperated sigh.

  “This has nothing to do with me. I don’t even understand it.”

  In fact, Stas’s last statement had not technically been a falsehood. However, his response had been a lie of omission, something else of which he had once never thought himself capable.

  Jurgen cocked his head to the side for a second in shock. Then he squared his shoulders for his response.

  “Stanislas, it is in Polish. There is no one else in Fribourg to which it could be addressed.”

  The Egypt-born youth did not know how to respond. It was clear that his very formal, very Swiss roommate suspected something. Yet what could Stas tell him? How would he receive claims that Stas still had trouble countenancing himself: that the letters came from seemingly supernatural beings? And beyond that, how much could the Slav reveal to his inquisitor? Certainly, he could not be trusted to know about the diamond or its immense power. Nobody could be told. Not about any of it. At least, Nell had already known. He could have talked to her. She would have known what he was going through. The girl had always been so much more open to other ways of thinking than he had. At the same time, she’d understood what his origins meant to him. Nell could help him puzzle it out. But she was no longer here.

  In that moment, Stas felt an uncontrollable surge of cynical hopelessness. It was an overwhelming certainty that those like Jurgen would always look down upon those like him. Though, again, the boy felt doubly perturbed that he could not precisely define whom that latter category included. Yet, he knew well the feeling of being ostracized; it was some deep part of that section of his essence, which led Stas to utter his next word, even as he felt utter shock that it was his voice that had pronounced it:

  “Cyrillic.”

  “What? Stanislas, what are you talking about?”

  “It’s not Polish. We use the Cyrillic alphabet.”

  Stas felt sick to his stomach even as he heard his voice speak the words. After all that his family had fought for, Stas Tarkowski found himself defending the Russification that his own grandparents fought so hard against. A rebellion against the Czar’s dominion over Polish lands had caused his father to seek refuge in the English colonies. Thinking of this, the son of the engineer grew even more disgusted with himself. But what else could he say to Fischer? Excluding the preceding months, Stas had always highlighted the certainty and esteem in which he held his national personhood to be one of his finest traits. But, since learning that there was so much more out there, he had to defend his secret. Even if the only way he could think of attempting to do so repulsed him. And that prompted a doubt even more revolting to enter his psyche:

  If people like Jurgen never accept us, then maybe there is no future left for Poland. Maybe there is some truth to what I have said.

  “Stanislas….” For his part, the Swiss youth appeared somewhat scandalized at his roommate’s contention.

  “Polish is not written in Russian letters,” he finished in a tone of disbelief.

  “Really.” Stas replied bitterly. “How would you know?”

  It was a short moment before the German Swiss responded. He looked slightly more scandalized by the admission.

  “A couple of weeks ago. You received a letter from your father….”

  “You read my mail?” Stas interrupted him accusingly. “You accuse me of dishonesty and yet you think you can play the voyeur?

  The more formally dressed of the two looked mildly abashed.

  “I would never do that. It would be immoral,” he defended himself, his pride mildly hurt.

  “Yet, you did.” Stas crowed as if he had scored a few argumentative points.

  “I would hardly call it reading your mail. You left the letter on top of your desk sticking out of the envelope. I could see the return address – Madras, to a Mister Tarkowski – and the first part of the text. It was written in a…,” Jurgen paused, looking for the most polished word he could locate, “peculiar script. One with an inordinate amount of consonants. It had various accented zeds, and L’s with lines through them. But it was definitely based on Latin script.”

  Jurgen finished his factual accusation, then continued:

  “You are lying through your teeth, Stanislas. Even as you claim to follow our values, you really are more like those in the jungle who were your friends. I have always heard the Slavs were that way as well.”

  Stas directed his head toward the ground.

  “How can you say that? I am not less human than you. I have seen so much more.”

  “If you are…,” Jurgen responded, clearly in his own way angry. “If you are, then you will show me that you understand Christian ethics and respect. What is on that paper?”

  Stas looked back down at the parchment that he still held in his left hand. The youth reread the inscription on it:

  Wiedź:

  Drugie źródło przemoca Świętego Fragmentu

  Leży pod wzrokiem Czarnej Bogini

  Jak przychodzi odpowiedni czas, idź do niej.

  - Zitar

  Stas continued to stare at the paper for a while longer.


  “Stanislas?”

  The Slav did not respond. Of course, he could understand what was written on the paper. But, that still did not mean he knew exactly what it meant. He could guess, that was for sure. However, he did not know with certainty. Stas had no love for the portents that the message carried. The former resident of India knew there was no way that he could tell Jurgen of it, without revealing so much that the Swiss did not need to know. And, without admitting to the possibility of so many things that the self-proclaimed Pole still did not wish to consider.

  He continued to stare at the parchment.

  “Stanislas!”

  Stas did not respond.

  Eventually, Jurgen shook his head. Then, he stated what he had already surmised to be a fact.

  “You are not going to tell me, are you?”

  Stas continued to stare curiously at the paper as if the other youth were no longer there.

  All Hope Is Not Lost

  Our quest continues in

  Keepers of the Stone

  Book Two:

  Exiled

  and Book Three:

  Homecoming

  Author’s Request and FREE Offer:

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