The Flight from Kar (The Emperor's Library

by Frederick Kirchhoff

  Initially, they followed the trail Jon had taken when he first entered the valley, but, reaching the clearing where he’d spent the night, they turned off in a new direction. This was new territory for Jon, and he was eager to see what was coming next.

  Late in the morning, they stopped on a rocky outcrop to eat. They’d been going uphill for hours, traveling at a pace Jon couldn’t have sustained twelve months ago, but it wasn’t until he looked back over the valley that he realized how high they’d come. Below, the forest stretched eastward, a thousand shades of green. Surely John must have shared the elation Jon felt at this moment. It was time to talk, but Jon would have to lead him into the subject carefully.

  “You know,” Jon said, “I read all the travel books in the Foresters’ library, and I learned a lot from them. But they raised questions, too. Some books had maps, for example, but, even when they pictured the same region, what they showed wasn’t always the same. The map in one book put a lake where the map in another had a desert. One even showed a mountain range that was missing in other maps of the same area. But every author claimed to have seen what he described. In the end, it seemed impossible to know what to believe.”

  John said nothing, but Jon could tell that he was listening intently.

  “Take the desert on the eastern edge of the Empire,” Jon continued. “One book described a road across it and even named the towns it passed through. But another pictured the desert as a blank space scattered with dots to represent the sand. Is there a road or isn’t there? And if there’s a road, do those towns really exist?”

  John replied without looking at him.

  “I know what you mean. I haven’t read all the books, but I’ve read most of them. And I’ve taken opportunities—in Bridgetown mainly—to ask questions like the ones you’re asking me.”

  “What did you find out?” Jon asked.

  “Not all I wanted, but enough to solve a few of your problems.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, Jon turned his head to watch John. John glanced at him quickly, but looked away as he continued to speak.

  “There’s no road across the desert if you mean something like the River Road, but there’s a trail that follows the remains of a road from an earlier time. In a few places where the old road is exposed, the paving stones are worn into ruts by centuries of travel, but sand covers most of the region, and here someone once erected stone pillars to mark the way. Many of them are now broken or buried, but enough are left to carry out their original purpose. As for the towns—no inhabited cities or towns now exist in the desert, only watering holes. In the more recent books, the names inscribed on the maps were probably the names of these oases. But once real cities did indeed flourish there, particularly in the East, and a merchant who’d traveled the route years ago told me that you could still see their ruins on the hilltops—roofless mud-brick buildings crumbling in the hot wind. If you were looking at an early map, the names could have been the names of those towns.”

  “How can you tell that one book was written before another? The only dates I came across appeared to record when the book had been copied, not when it was originally set down.”

  “That’s a good question, but I don’t know how to answer it. For me, it was just they way they sounded. The older books sounded older. That’s not a good explanation, but it’s all I can offer.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” Jon said. “Some of the books sounded older to me, too. It had to do with the language.”

  “Yes, that’s it. The older writers use words in ways we don’t use anymore.”

  Now that John seemed to be opening up, Jon refused to hold back his questions.

  “You said there used to be cities in the desert. How could there be cities where there’s no water?”

  “Good point. But that could mean that there must have been water there at one time. One of the books described rivers that have disappeared beneath the sand. Did you read that one?”

  “I may . . . there were so many details, it’s hard to remember all of them.”

  “No one could. And the book I have in mind didn’t actually report the existence of the lost rivers; it just cited legends about them. But the man I talked to spoke of a river that once flowed down from the highlands and emptied into the Northern Sea. It’s dry now, but every decade or so the riverbed grows damp and here and there pools of water appear. His theory was that the river had gone underground, and when there’s unusually heavy snowmelt in the highlands the water rises almost to the surface.

  “He was an impressive man—for a merchant—a man who had interests beyond buying and selling. He’d evidently thought about what he’d seen in his travels. He also told me that the desert is growing and that the eastern outposts of the Empire will eventually become ruins, too. That could also explain why one of your books showed a lake where another had a desert.”

  “I wish I could see those ruins, and the remains of that river.”

  “Do you?” John asked, turning to face Jon.

  Why was he asking that question? It hadn’t been all that long since the two of them had contemplated a journey to Kar.

  “Yes. I’ve always wanted to travel. Didn’t I tell you that the day we met?”

  “Of course you did, and that was one of the things I liked about you. I felt I’d discovered someone who thought exactly the way I did. And I was sure you felt that connection, too. You did, didn’t you, Jon?”

  “Yes.”

  He saw excitement in John’s eyes. It was the look of a man priming himself to do something dangerous.

  “Jon, if you’re willing, I’d like to take you to a place no one else in my family has ever set eyes on. It won’t be your great eastern desert, but it will be a sight just as wonderful. Even more wonderful, perhaps.”

  “What is it?”

  John smiled.

  “I’m not going to tell you in advance. I want it to be a surprise. Are you willing to trust me?”

  “Of course I’ll trust you.”

  So they scrambled up and set off once more, continuing on their northwesterly course. But then, when the path veered back toward the East, John made a sharp left turn and led Jon up a spur that branched from the main peak. If there was a trail here, it was faint, but John knew exactly where he was going and climbed the slope at a steady pace, turning his head to glance back at Jon from time to time, but otherwise fixed on the ascent. The trees had thinned out and grown smaller even before they’d left the main path. Now trees gave way to low shrubs and then shrubs to coarse grass and patches of bare, rocky soil. On their left the high summit gleamed in the sunlight, a mass of ice and snow broken by sheer cliffs. Jon felt lightheaded. It was difficult to catch his breath. He knew they were much higher than the summit of the Boundary Mountain or the ridge at the Mountain House.

  “Where are we going?” he asked John. “We seem to be headed right up to the snow.”

  “You’ve said it—we’re heading to the snow. We have to cross it to get where I’m taking you—but the distance from one side to the other isn’t great, and beyond this shoulder of the mountain it’s downhill the rest of the way.”

  To Jon’s surprise, the snow turned out to be crusty enough to support his weight. Once, his foot broke through the surface and slipped into the softer snow beneath it, but he followed John’s instructions and pulled himself out by rolling over on his back and spreading his weight on the surface. Aside from that interruption, the way was surprisingly easy.

  “It’s just a little further,” John told him. “Everyone believes the snow is a boundary, because they’ve been told that all their lives, but if you try to cross it you discover that it’s really a bridge. I come here every summer—but I’ve never told anyone about it. This place has always been my secret.”

  When they reached the far side of the snowfield, they found themselves on a rock face that sloped to the West. Beyond it, nothing was visible but haze.

  “We’re almost there,” John said, settin
g off downhill, with Jon close behind. And then they stopped.

  Below them, the slope dropped abruptly, and Jon saw that the mountain ended in a wide strip of uneven grassland, several miles in width, beyond which an expanse of blue melted into the horizon. He’d never seen the sea, but he recognized it at once. Offshore, a small island floated on the water, and beyond it another, larger island—and, although it was hard to tell, perhaps a third island lay even further out. To the South, the strip of vegetation along the shore narrowed and then ended where the mountains rose from the water in sheer cliffs. But to the North the land between mountain and sea broadened and extended as far as he could see, interrupted only by an S-shaped river that spilled into the Western Ocean in a faint plume of muddy water.

  “Can we go down to the edge of the sea?” Jon asked.

  John was surprised by the question.

  “I’ve never tried. This is as far as I’ve ever come. One of the things you learn as a Forester is that there are places you don’t want to travel alone. But today I have a partner, and I think we could get at least halfway down by following that ledge. It turns beyond the cliff, so you can’t see where it goes from there. But not a great distance below, the slope becomes gentle. If we could make it to that point, we could descend the rest of the way without difficulty. But it’s already late in the afternoon.”

  “Shouldn’t we start then?”

  John looked at him, as if making a decision.

  “Yes, we should,” he said. “I’ll go first.”

  They followed a shelf that worked its way downward along the edge of a rock wall. At times it became very narrow, and Jon told himself not to look down. But they made their way without mishap. It was almost as good as a regular trail. However a corner loomed ahead of them, where the edge of the cliff turned. Beyond that, it shouldn’t be far to where the slope grew less steep. But what if the ledge itself disappeared around the bend? There’d be nothing to do but retrace their steps.

  John reached the turn and looked around to the other side.

  “Wow!” he said, turning his head back to speak to Jon. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll see when you get here.”

  He rounded the corner and was lost from sight. Jon followed. Then, turning the corner himself, he saw what had excited John. A series of slots had been cut into the stone—hand and footholds, descending the cliff like a ladder. John had already reached the bottom and was looking up at him.

  “We’re not the first,” he said.

  “It’s like the stone ladder on the White Wall.”

  “They were both cut a long time ago.”

  Indeed, the ladder was far from new. In places the slots were cracked and broken, and loose rock meant you had to be careful. Jon made a point of not looking down until he heard John speak again and knew that he was only a few feet from level ground.

  “Someone once used this ladder regularly,” John said. “But from the direction we came, who could have guessed it was here?”

  “No one,” Jon replied. “And now no one knows about it but the two of us. At least no one we know anything about.”

  “Perhaps we should stop here,” John said, looking around. “It’s getting dark and this is unfamiliar terrain. The lower half of the mountain doesn’t look difficult, but I’d rather wait until we can see where we’re going. Once the sun rises, we can go the rest of the distance tomorrow.”

  They were standing on a broad area of grass. Not far away, a thread of water was trickling down the cliffside. Jon tasted it and found it sweet and cool.

  “The water’s good,” he said. “We won’t find a better place to camp for the night.”

  And so they unpacked what they needed and sat down next to one another, gazing out at the sea and the islands, which changed from gray to pink to purple as the sun approached the horizon. The ground was warm from the afternoon sunlight, but the light wind was chill. Jon moved closer to John for warmth, and John put his arm around his shoulders. It was a spontaneous gesture that must have surprised John himself because he immediately started to move away. But then he thought better of it and allowed his hand to rest on Jon’s arm. Jon felt him trembling slightly.

  “I’ll never forget this moment,” John said. “It’s so incredibly beautiful—the sea, the sky and everything. I’m happy we could share this, Jon.”

  “I’ll never forget it either. I like your family—I like them very much. They’ve treated me like no one has ever treated me before—but I’m glad the two of us are here alone together. It’s what I’ve always wanted—sharing an experience like this with you.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes, John.”

  Hearing those words, John bent his head and kissed Jon’s cheek.

  So this is why John had been afraid to be alone with him, Jon realized—because he loved him. And he loved John. He’d loved him from the moment he saw him standing above him on the rock. He hadn’t called it love, but now he told himself that was what it had been.

  Jon turned his head and kissed him on the lips, first gently then passionately. And it was if he’d touched a hidden spring, for now it was John who was kissing him, forcing him down, pressing into him with an explosion of passion, then pulling away with a sudden start.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Jon. I’m afraid I may be hurting you.”

  Jon reached out and put his hand on John’s thigh. He felt his dick through the fabric of his pants and began stroking it gently. It was his way of telling John that he wasn’t afraid of anything he might do. John grinned.

  “It feels so good the way you touch me,” he said. “It feels so good.”

  Then he began undressing Jon.

  “Your skin is so beautiful. I love your skin. I love everything about you.”

  “Hold me,” Jon said. “Hold me against your body. I want to feel your body. I want to feel everything about you.”

  ▲

  When Jon awoke the next morning, the sun was just rising over the crest of the mountain behind them. He turned his head and saw John sitting cross-legged next to him. He’d never seen John with so distraught an expression.

  “It wasn’t what I wanted to happen,” John said. “I wanted to be your friend and your teacher—and that was all. But now everything has changed. Will you ever forgive me?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “It’s what the Brotherhood do to the boys they take from your valley—use the lumpish ones for labor and the handsome ones for sex.”

  “Well, I’m glad you still think I’m handsome. But do they love the ones they use for sex?”

  John blinked. It wasn’t the response he expected.

  “No—far from it. In fact, they pretend to despise them. They tell each other they fuck the boys only because there are no women among them—not because they really enjoy doing it.”

  “And is that what we did—did you use me for sex because there was no woman handy? Or was it something different? And are you now going to pretend to despise me?”

  John ignored his questions. Instead, he got to his feet and walked to the edge of the patch of grass a few feet away, where the slope began to fall again. Then he turned to Jon.

  “It was when I first saw you, that afternoon in the Valley of Women, looking up at me. From that moment on I wanted to hold you in my arms. I’d never felt that way about another man before. Not about anyone else. Afterwards, I couldn’t get you out of my head. I thought about you every day, month after month. Is that crazy? I saw your face every time I closed my eyes—looking at me so fearlessly—like no one else I’d ever seen. And I was sure you’d come to the Forest House—I don’t know why, but I was certain of it. And I’d never wanted anything else so much in my life.”

  “I thought about you, too. I wanted to find you.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would have found a way to get there, even if what happened in the val
ley with Piers hadn’t happened. That was what I was doing the day I struck him—looking for the place you’d used to cross the Boundary Mountain.”

  That was true, but, Jon reminded himself, without the Mothers’ sentence of death he might never have had the will to climb the mountain. Someday he’d confess that to John, but not today. And he also wanted to ask him about Cressa and what Zoë had meant by “having a bit of fun.” That hardly matched what John had just said about never loving anyone else. But that conversation could wait, too. After all, what did it matter if John had had women in his life? Jon had him now, and he was certain John could never have felt about a woman the way he felt about Jon. There are things you just know, and that was one of them.

  “I love you, Jon. With all my heart, I love you. And I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else like this.”

  See, John had said it himself.

  “Last night, when we looked down at the sea, you said you’d remember it forever,” Jon said. “I want to be with you forever.”

  How unexpected it all was—John and the sight of the sea and now his talking this way to him.

  They ate their small breakfast and made their way down the mountain, occasionally holding hands, occasionally stopping—usually at Jon’s instigation—to kiss one another.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” John kept saying.

  It took a longer time than John had anticipated to cross the band of vegetation between the mountain and the sea. The grasses were taller than they’d appeared from above, and some had sharp edges that cut their skin if they pushed against them the wrong way. But eventually, crossing dunes of fine white sand, they reached an expanse of coarser, slightly darker sand, scattered with seashells and driftwood, before which the sea broke in one wave after another.

  “So many things lie here,” Jon said. “It’s as if they were discarded from a thousand different places.”

  “Or maybe they’re collected here for a purpose,” John replied.