At twilight he returned with a pocketful of the same pale berries and some leaves that, though bitter, were soft enough to chew. Troll grabbed up his share and cast it into his mouth. He looked to Iliff as if expecting more, but there was no more.
They pulled their bags over their shoulders and plodded down to the river.
* * *
For the next several days, they continued to travel during those few hours when the light was gentle on Troll’s eyes and Iliff could still see. As they ascended, the river broadened and strengthened, while the forest on either side grew denser. Their spoils from foraging and hunting remained meager, however. Iliff’s hunger pangs became more insistent. Troll suffered as well. He hunched and staggered and, at times, grumbled about how much better they had it in the mines.
“At least we’re finding some food out here,” Iliff would say. “We just have to find more of it.”
But he worried that the Sun had decided not to provide for them, that this was his punishment for having left the path. And with this worry came another, even more disturbing. If this scarcity went on much longer, they would have little choice but to return to the mines… and Euclid.
* * *
One morning Troll stumbled into camp carrying a small creature by the tail. It swung beneath the pinch of his thumb and forefinger, the body beneath its crushed head more fur than meat.
“Well, this is it,” Troll grumbled. “I suppose we can split it.”
Iliff shook his head, though he was famished. “No, you go ahead,” he said. “You caught it.” He cinched his cloak around him and prodded the gray ashes of their campfire.
Troll tossed the morsel into his mouth and chewed and grimaced, though not from the taste, Iliff guessed, but from the understanding that it was all he would have to eat until that night—assuming Iliff could find them food. Troll sagged to the ground across from him.
“Are you sure we can’t hunt the big ones?”
“We can’t.” Iliff looked hard at his companion. “Under any circumstances.”
“Because one walked right past me last night. It would’ve been so easy—”
“I said no.”
“But there’d be so much meat!” Troll thrust his palms out. “We’d eat for days.”
“What good is getting food if it means our lives are forfeit? I told you what Stag said.”
“Humph.” Troll sagged back down.
Iliff pressed his hand up into his drawn stomach. The talk of food had set it shaking. He eyed Troll, who was looking at the ground now, fog puffing from his nostrils in poor clouds. In truth, Iliff had had the same thought upon his own encounter with an animal the day before. The animal had been brown and muscular like Stag, but without antlers. It was grazing on the leaves of low branches near where Iliff had stopped to rest. He watched it for several minutes, admiring its beauty. But then his stomach rumbled and he began to imagine a large cooking fire and the sound and smell of hissing meat. It was only when the forest litter crackled beneath him that the animal became aware of his closeness and sprinted away.
Troll jerked his head up. “Oh, I saw one of your kind last night.”
“What? A person?”
Troll nodded.
“Where?”
“Down the river. A female, I think.” He touched his splay nose. “The smell’s different.”
Iliff was silent for a moment. He stood and looked skyward.
“It’s nearly first light,” he said, though dawn was still an hour away. “Here, take the treasures and let’s find a place for you deeper in the trees. While you rest, I’ll see what I can learn of her.”
Chapter 16
Iliff washed his face, combed water through his hair, and set off down along the river. He listened as he went but heard nothing save for the first birdcalls up in the trees and the chuckling of water below.
A woman, he thought. He had not known any but Adramina and could hardly even imagine another. Was this one also wise and powerful? he wondered. Would she favor them? Aid them? Perhaps join them on their quest?
Iliff soon came to a place where tall grass swept from the water’s edge to create a screen all the way to the forest. He remembered walking around it the evening before; he could even see where he and Troll had emerged from the trees. Now he noticed a place where the grass had been pressed flat.
He entered and explored the crude pathway. The tall, tawny blades to either side leaned in and brushed his face before climbing above his head. Before long the path opened into an area where all of the grasses had been stomped to the ground. Iliff could make out a heap of rags and odd implements littering its far side, as though someone had made their home here. He did not notice the giant form curled to his right until he was almost beside it.
The woman gave a snort, then shrieked and jerked upright. A riot of dark hair whipped over flared eyes and a mouth so tightly pursed that it looked like a fist, one nearly as large as his own.
“Oh!” Iliff stumbled backward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
Crouched on thick knees, she remained glaring toward him, her clawed hand showing dark, ragged nails. The ogre-like woman looked nothing like Adramina, Iliff thought distractedly. Nothing at all. She flexed now as if preparing to lunge, though in what direction, at him or away, Iliff could not tell.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he stammered, raising his hands. “I—I just came to see about you.”
The woman tilted her head, as if hearing him for the first time. Her mouth relaxed and opened a bit, revealing large gaps in her teeth. She pushed the hair from her softening eyes and lowered her hand to her broad chest.
“Norm?” she grunted. “Norman?” She began to feel the ground toward Iliff’s boots. She climbed over one with her hands and pressed her ample cheek to it. “Yes, yes, ’tis you!”
“No, um, I’m not Norman. My name is Iliff.”
The woman went on stroking his boot and grunting over it. Iliff was debating whether to leave this strange woman to her strange illusions when she seized his cloak as though to pull herself upright. Instead, Iliff lost his balance and stumbled against her. She twisted the sides of his cloak around her fists and held him there, dark, tear-shaped eyes roaming the breadth of his face. Their sadness held a strange attraction, and Iliff decided not to resist. Not yet. The woman would see her mistake soon enough. Then, perhaps, he could talk to her.
But in the next moment she was sighing and wrapping her arms around him, squeezing much of the air from him.
“Norman,” she whispered. “Hold me, dearie.”
His voice emerged a muffle. “I am not… Norman. I am Iliff.”
She rocked him back and forth, the fullness of her body pressed to his. In his deprived state, he felt himself yielding to her weight, her motion. He rested his head against hers, despite himself.
“I’ve traveled far,” he murmured. “I’m very hungry.”
* * *
For the rest of the morning Iliff went with the woman as she gathered forest foods and dropped them into a large basket of woven grass. She was strong and thick with arms that swelled beyond the sleeves of her dark dress. Iliff might have mistaken her for a man if her chest and hips were not so full. The latter rolled in powerful figure-eights when she walked. She looked down at Iliff often, her trembling smile almost pushing the heaviness from her eyes. But she seemed hesitant to speak, as if doing so might upset the delusion of her Norman’s return.
Iliff was careful to linger over the plants she chose, tasting their fruits and shoots. They were more flavorful than anything he had found on his own, and he wondered how he had missed them. He soon saw that they only grew in certain places. The sweet maroon berry in the thorny growth, the succulent shoots in the shade of the pale trees. And with this he began to understand how interwoven the world out here was—everything dependent on everything else—and with this, how important balance and harmony must be to such a place. Perhaps the laws of the council were not so harsh afte
r all, he mused.
He folded his cloak into a deep sling and when the woman was not looking, gathered additional food for Troll.
They returned to the river, where the woman spread out her tattered shawl like a blanket and arranged all of the foods she had gathered. It was a colorful haul. Iliff thanked her and began to eat, but the woman did not join him. She sat on the stiff folds of her dress, her thorn-scratched legs folded to one side, watching him.
“Tell me,” Iliff said when he had eaten enough to quiet his stomach. “How long have you been here?”
“I’ve always ’a been here,” she said.
“Who else has been here with you?”
“Just you, dearie.” She appeared confused.
“Yes, yes, but who raised you? Who taught you to find food? Are they still about?”
She did not answer. When he looked up it was clear by her dim, crooked gaze that she was not even considering his question. She smiled and edged herself closer to him.
“Is there no one else here?” he asked.
She edged closer still.
“How long have you been alone?”
She hesitated and her eyes fell.
Iliff thought for a moment. “Didn’t there ever come a time when you thought, ‘He may never return. I must leave and seek another place, other companions?’ Did that never cross your mind?”
She lifted a dark berry from the shawl and rolled it between her stained finger and thumb, but made no move to carry it to her mouth.
“Well?”
Her expression fell around deep, familiar lines. “I always tol’ meself you’d come back. We talked ’bout building our home, right here, ’aside the waters. You said… you said…” She looked away over the river.
Iliff reached over and cupped her broad nape. “You are a good woman,” he said, “but you have to listen to me now. I am not Norman. My name is Iliff. I am passing through the forest in my search for the Sun. I do not plan on staying.”
Tears dribbled the length of her downcast nose and dropped onto the shawl in great speckles.
“No, no, listen to me.” Iliff lowered his head until he could see her face beyond her wild tangles of hair. “You’ve suffered alone in this place for far too long. I want you to come with me. I want us to seek the Sun together.”
“Leave?” She sniffled and pressed the collar of her dress to her eyes.
Iliff nodded. He told her about his own miseries then, first in the prison and then in the mines. “And I would still be miserable in those places had I not left them to seek the Sun. For the Sun is where I’m from, I believe. Where we are all from. And maybe it’s just that we will know nothing but misery until we return there. Until we look upon the Sun at last.”
The woman seemed to be listening, but as Iliff waited for her response, her expression became diffuse. She scooted the remaining distance between them and pressed herself into his side.
“Now that you ’a come back,” she whispered, “we can be as man and woman again?”
She moved her hand from his chest to his stomach, playing with the folds of his tunic along the way. Her deep, sorrowful eyes loomed before his. He could feel the weight of them, the weight of her, leaning into him, pulling him down.
“No, I’m not Norm—” He scrambled to his feet and stood away from her. “Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said?”
She began to reach for him, but pulled back. Her mouth stretched wide, and in the next instant she was facedown on the ground. From beneath her knotted hair came such terrific spasms of shrieks and gasps that Iliff feared she would suffocate. He dropped to her side.
“Git away from me!” she bellowed when she could draw enough air. “You’ll only ’a leave me again!”
“I’m inviting you to come with me.” He touched her back. “This misery, I’m inviting you to leave it behind.”
“No! ’tis a trick!” She jerked away. “Y—you’ll sneak away, just like ’afore. You’ll leave me here, but I won’ be able to stand it this time. I won’! D’ye hear me? I—I’ll drown meself!”
Iliff watched in confusion and fright as she kicked and pummeled the ground, causing it to tremble. She grabbed the shawl, scattering what remained of their breakfast, and pressed it to her face. Every time Iliff attempted to console her, she shrieked and squirmed away and fell into heavier sobbing.
It was not until sometime after noon that the tantrum finally exhausted her. Her tortured breaths deepened and became snores. Iliff considered gathering more food for them, but he did want to go off lest the woman awaken and, believing herself abandoned, carry out her threat.
And so he sat there as the light of the day waned and the river that was his path tumbled on and on before him.
Chapter 17
Dusk came to the forest and still the woman slept. Iliff imagined that Troll was awake by now and wondering where he was. As he considered what to do, he heard a familiar heavy tread coming down along the river. Iliff ran to meet his companion and found him limping along, the sack of treasures hanging over his back. He bore the most miserable look on his face.
“There you are,” Troll said. “Please tell me you’ve found something to eat. I’m about to collapse.”
Iliff gave over the cloak-full of food. Troll grunted his surprise, but wasted no time getting the hoard into his mouth. When Troll waded into the river to drink, Iliff caught him up on the day’s happenings.
“And now I’m worn out,” Iliff finished. “But I’m afraid if I go off to get some sleep, she’ll throw herself into the river.”
Troll lifted his head from the water and bent his narrow brow.
“I can keep an eye on her,” he said. “I’m not having much luck with the hunting anyway. Don’t worry. I’ll stop her if she tries to do anything.”
Iliff thought for a moment. “You do have experience keeping vigil over people,” he said, almost to himself. “Yes, all right then. But come and wake me before first light. Sooner, if she starts to stir.”
* * *
The sky was beginning to pale when Troll shook Iliff awake. He had found a small clearing in the trees, just large enough to curl inside. He was stiff and disoriented as he sat up.
“She’s starting to stir,” Troll whispered.
Iliff nodded and was about to ask Troll how the night went when the first wailings sounded, deep and forlorn.
“Nooormaaan…”
Remembering the woman’s threat, Iliff dressed hurriedly and ran down to the water. He pulled up when he got there, relieved to find her in the same spot where she had fallen asleep the day before. She was kneeling now, her back to him, her mussed hair littered with debris. Her voice boomed again: “Nooormaaan!”
Iliff lingered, curious to see what she would do. He could reach her in time if she made for the river. If she did not, if the threat were an empty one, he and Troll could be on their way with the assurance, at least, that she would not harm herself.
But when she wailed a third time, the sadness of her voice was too much. He came up behind her.
“I’m here,” he said.
She made a small, surprised noise and turned her head. And there were her eyes, her large, ponderous eyes made alluring by their sorrow. She got up and stumbled toward him, falling into his chest.
“It’s all right,” Iliff said, trying not to grunt with the effort of holding her up. “I’m here.”
She sobbed for a time while Iliff rubbed her heaving back. By the time she raised her head, a smile had swum up from beneath her swollen features.
“You’re hungry, ain’t you?” she asked. She sniffled and knelt for her grass basket. “Come, dearie. I’ll fetch us some food.”
Nodding, Iliff folded his cloak into a sling and let her lead him into the forest.
* * *
They foraged the morning long, Iliff discovering that he was able to find several of the foods on his own this time. The woman spoke little but turned often to seek his hand. She was content, it seemed, so long as
he remained close.
They ate on the bank again and then sat watching the river. Iliff wondered where it all came from, this endless flowing water. Of course, if he kept to his path, he told himself, he would not have to wonder. His eyes drifted to the swirling pools of water near their feet.
“Have you given any thought about what I said yesterday?” he asked.
In his periphery, he saw the woman turn toward him. Though he could make out the dark swells of her eyes, his distance from them seemed to weaken their strange allure.
“About coming with me?” he said. “About seeking the Sun?”
She remained silent.
“Because”—he took a breath—”because I’m planning to leave tonight.”
He saw her body slump, but still he did not look directly at her. When she spoke at last, her voice was low and pitiful, little more than a murmur.
“But we talked ’bout building our home here,” she said. “Right here, ’aside the waters…”
“You talked about it with someone who is no longer here,” Iliff said. “I am not Norman, I’ve told you that. My name is Iliff. I am on my way to seek the Sun, and I’ve told you that as well. I’m inviting you to come with me.” He glanced toward her. “I want you to come with me.”
She scooted toward him, but before she could reach him, before she could get her weight against him, he stood.
“I need to know your answer,” he said.
She collapsed forward, just as the day before. And as before, she was soon screaming and thrashing over the ground. This time Iliff resisted the urge to kneel beside her, to rub her back and speak softly.
“I’ll ’a do it this time,” she shrieked. “D’ye hear me? I—I’ll drown meself!”
She lifted herself to her hands and knees and began scrambling toward the water. Iliff stood and watched, not quite believing her, but when her hair spilled into the shallows, he raced over and grabbed her by the back of her dress. She pounded his arms and whipped her head. Tendrils of wet hair lashed his face. He wrestled her up the bank somehow and they fell back onto the ground, Iliff bearing the brunt of her weight. He lay there panting, the woman sobbing, then snoring.
Escape (The Prisoner and the Sun #1) Page 10
