The World of Samar Box Set 3

by M. L. Hamilton

  Muzik nodded. Beside him, the commander was listening intently. Muzik glanced at him again. “I came to find you. To escort you to Adishian, but I had to make sure you were the right ones.”

  “We had letters of introduction. You could have asked us for them.”

  “Letters can be forged. I had to know for sure.”

  Kendrick pressed a hand against his temple. “I don’t understand. What did you have to know? What did you find out?”

  “That you were men of honor. Men of training. Men of discipline. Men of good character.”

  The commander snorted.

  Muzik shoved him down, glaring at him. He looked back at Kendrick. “Your letters of introduction will do for Tarnow, but not for me.”

  Kendrick motioned at Jarrett’s prone form. “And if he dies? None of it matters then. You let this happen, this is on your head.”

  Muzik looked miserable. “I know. I was wrong.”

  Kendrick’s attention shifted to the commander. “And what about them? What are you going to do with them? He’s heard everything we’ve said.”

  Muzik glanced at the man in question. “Lord Tarnow will decide that. These men are the trespassers. Adishian does not belong to Sarkisian just yet.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Jarrett woke in Terra Antiguo. He rose to his feet, rubbing his eyes, and gazed around him. The golden hay of the meadow extended on before him, the stocks waving gently in the warm breeze. The sun was shining and he stretched his cramped muscles in lazy comfort. Then he remembered all that had happened and he looked down at his arm, searching for the wound. To his surprise, it was gone.

  He rubbed the arm vigorously, but felt no pain. There wasn’t even a scar to mark the event. How could this be? The wound had been deep and long. Surely, it couldn’t have healed so well.

  He looked about again. Terra Antiguo? He was in Terra Antiguo, but how had he gotten here and why? And where was Kendrick? Had Kendrick brought him to Terra Antiguo and left him to continue the journey alone? But why was he in the middle of this meadow?

  Jarrett stopped himself. He looked around again uneasily. He couldn’t actually be in Terra Antiguo. The metallic taste of fear filled his mouth. He knew this taste, he’d experienced it all his life in dark, sinister dreams of ambiguous form as a child and then as distinct, sharp, all too real dreams of his adulthood, where the fear had shape and substance.

  Taking another hurried look around the meadow, he headed in the direction of the city. As he walked, the sky grew dark and murky clouds began to roll in off the mountains. He reached Terra Antiguo more quickly than was usually possible.

  As he stepped beneath the great stone wall that surrounded the city, he looked up along the battlements expecting to see guards standing at their posts. No Terrian guards flanked the battlements nor manned the gatehouse to the left of the entrance. Jarrett stopped, his back to the wall, and looked in the direction he had come. He had a suddenly overwhelming feeling that he was being watched from the trees that bordered the roadway leading to Terra Antiguo, but he couldn’t see anyone.

  Turning back around, he breathed a sigh. He was in Terra Antiguo. It was exactly as he remembered – the great outer wall made of smoothed, rounded stones, topped by battlements, and the guardhouse standing to the left of the main gate where he had spent many nights. Straight ahead rose the inner wall of the city itself, smaller than the outer wall and made of bricks. In its center was the central gate with ornate black iron railings and an arch decorated with loops and spirals. Through the arch, Jarrett could see the cobblestones of the city’s streets and the grooves in the archway from the wheels of heavily laden wagons that traveled through the inner gateway to the avenues beyond.

  He walked toward the street lights. As he crossed under the inner archway, he thought he heard something behind him again. He half-turned and saw a figure slip from the cover of the trees into the enclosure of the outer wall.

  His heart slammed against his ribs.

  Within the inner wall of the city, darkness had fallen and the growing clouds in the sky cast deep shadows into the alleys, but the golden glow of the street lamps fell like warm sanctuaries at even intervals along the sidewalks.

  Jarrett looked back to the outer wall and waited, but nothing moved. He took a deep breath and passed under the arch to the open streets beyond. As he went he searched each alley and looked into each of the buildings hoping to see anyone else, but the streets were deserted, except for the uncomfortably loud sound of his boots against the cobblestones. There wasn’t even the buzz of insects or the low burr from the furnaces in the buildings to interrupt the silence.

  On a thought, he halted and looked up to the roofs. No traces of smoke lifted from the chimneys, although he felt sure he had seen fires in some of the buildings he had looked into. Where were all the people?

  He passed on, glancing back into the darkness of the outer wall. There must be people somewhere, they would never have abandoned Terra Antiguo like this. And again the feeling that he wasn’t really in Terra Antiguo struck him, making him halt before the window of a barber shop.

  He lifted his eyes and looked inside to see himself reflected in the glass. His expression bordered on panic. For a moment, he didn’t notice the motion directly behind him, but a chill shivered up his spine as he shifted his gaze to the figure standing in the center of the street.

  He spun around, groping for his sword, but the sheath was empty, in fact the sheath was gone. As he turned, the figure disappeared. He leaned back against the glass, panting. A fine sheen of perspiration peppered his chest and back. It was suddenly hot in the city, so hot that it felt stifling and the air was heavy beneath the ponderous mass of dark clouds. He brushed his hair away from his forehead with a shaky hand and peered into the gloom of the street. Then he looked down at his arm.

  There was still no sign of a wound, but his arm ached suddenly.

  He returned to searching the empty streets for the figure, but there was no sign of him.

  Jarrett stiffened. Him? Closing his eyes, he tried to calm himself. He hadn’t been able to see the figure’s face, so why had he assumed it was male?

  He opened his eyes again when he realized he was rubbing his arm. The ache was growing, becoming a burning sensation, but he couldn’t understand why.

  He moved away from the window and under the bright light of a street lamp. He peered into the darkness, searching for the figure. Shaking his head, he wondered if he hadn’t imagined it. Terra Antiguo seemed deserted.

  He walked to the end of the street and turned left, his mind dashing ahead, trying to piece together everything that was happening to him. As he tried to sort things out, his feet took him through the twists and turns of the streets as if he were being directed by an external force, and he found himself passing the gabled house of the Terrian leader. He looked into its windows and saw that they were shuttered and sealed, but the sight added only one more mystery to all that had happened since he woke in the meadow.

  As he made a few more turns and passed down a few more streets, a growing feeling of uneasiness came over him. He halted in the middle of a broad avenue and lifted his eyes to the sign that turned in the wind. Oak Hollow Way...

  For some reason, he couldn’t remember why Oak Hollow Way was significant to him, but it was. He edged to the sign and touched the wood. A warm breeze blew in his hair and toyed with the collar of his cloak. He tore his eyes from the sign and looked down the murky street. Even on Oak Hollow Way, the streetlights were lit, but the houses were encased in shadows. Along the sidewalk no one stirred, not even a cat or dog. At the far end of the street, nearly beyond eyeshot, stood a single house whose windows were ablaze from the inside with a sort of phosphorescent glow.

  He caught his breath. He suddenly remembered all that Oak Hollow Way meant to him and he wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t respond. Oak Hollow Way...

  He hadn’t been down this street in years, not since he’d become a Terrian guard – and th
e house at the end of the street...even from where he stood he could make out the spectral image of the oak that had once dominated the whole of the front yard.

  Although he told himself to flee, his legs began moving away from the sign and down the street toward the lighted house. He heard his own breath, ragged in his ears, and the pounding of his heart sounded oddly loud and irregular. The heat of the night had increased so that sweat ran down his face and body. He undid the top few laces of his shirt to help himself breathe easier and pushed the wet hair from his forehead. If only he had his sword, he thought.

  Before he could break the spell that had bound him, he reached the front of the house, its whitewashed walls rising larger than he’d remembered, its roof sloping steeply toward the ground. Planter boxes under each of the front windows were choked with dying plants, wilted petals strewn over the walkway and stairs. The white picket fence was immaculately painted and sturdy. Jarrett pressed himself against it, holding his hands back from the latch they sought so eagerly to open. Each window was extremely incandescence with light, so brightly lit that he couldn’t see into the rooms. The porch was wide and long, the front door seeming small and narrow in the distance.

  To his right rose the oak, its branches stretching over the fence and shading the sidewalk, its roots causing deep fissures in the earth, and its trunk nearly ten times the size of the Terrian. Jarrett lifted his eyes to the upper most branches, which were bare against the sky. They rubbed together in the breeze like hands stretching towards the warmth. As the branches rubbed together, it sounded as if a hundred voices were speaking in harsh whispers. Jarrett felt small and vulnerable in the substantial shadow of the great tree, and his hands shook as they rested on the gate. He felt pain creeping steadily up his legs.

  He had always sought solitude and comfort in the bows of this tree, he had hugged its immense trunk, and he had spent hours hiding behind it, praying that it would shield him. As he stood beneath it now, he was afraid, deeply and darkly afraid of it.

  Suddenly, the ground heaved, making him stagger. He shrank against the gate, his hands searching once again for the latch. In his mind, he willed himself away from the fence and back into the street, but as the earth rolled again, his hands found the latch and the gate swung open with such force that it splintered into the fence. The rumbling died out over the mountains that ringed in Terra Antiguo and the bottomless silence descended once more.

  Jarrett stood shaking in the middle of the walkway that led to the house. Again his legs were propelled by a force not his own and he soon found himself on the bottom step. The step was more steep and narrow than he remembered and he climbed carefully. His mind raced ahead of his body once more. Why was he so afraid and why couldn’t he control himself, take himself back down the walk and into the street again? The front door will be locked, he lied to himself, but he knew that it would open.

  He didn’t want to go back into that house, had vowed to himself that he’d never return, but he found himself standing before the front door, his hand reaching for the knob. As he knew it would, it yielded to his touch and swung inward. The light flooded into his eyes with a stark suddenness, so sudden that at first he couldn’t see. He backed instinctively into one of the walls and blinked until his eyes adjusted from the darkness outside to this inner brilliance.

  Everything was as he remembered it, although it seemed larger and more severe in this glaring light. Before him rose the arched and polished banister, to his right the tiled floor of the kitchen and to his left the parlor with its garish red velvet furnishing. His mother had been fond of velvet and particularly fond of red, although she’d been a quiet, reticent woman.

  Jarrett moved slowly from the hallway and his eyes darted about the room. He could smell the heavy, sweet odor of lavender that his mother used to hide the other, less pleasant smells of Human life. She had scrubbed lavender into the floors and the railings of the banister, and had misted it into the fabric of the couches and curtains. Yet underneath the heavy scent, Jarrett could discern another stronger, more offensive aroma.

  He halted and his heart slammed against his ribs once more. Anxiety rushed through him. He knew this smell. He stumbled to the stairs, his legs forcing him along, even though his mind wanted to flee out the door again.

  Once more, before he could stop himself, he found himself on the upper landing, staring down the hallway that led to the rooms once occupied by his family. To his left, the door to his older brother’s room stood open. Jarrett moved to the entrance and peered in. From the bed, his brother rose and turned to face him.

  “Davlin?” Jarrett whispered. Davlin had short-cropped, red hair and dark eyes. He extended a pale hand toward Jarrett. “Davlin, where are the others?” Behind his brother was a mirror and Jarrett could see his own sharp features reflected in it, a stark contrast to the blunt features of his light-skinned brother.

  “Welcome home, Jarrett,” Davlin said. “You’ve been gone a long time. You never come to visit us. Not even Mother.”

  “How is our mother?” he asked.

  “As if you cared. You haven’t been to visit since you became a Terrian guard. Father thinks that you feel you’re too good for us now.”

  Jarrett was surprised by the childish tone of his brother’s voice. The face was a man’s, but the voice was a strange echo of childhood, of his childhood. He couldn’t control the shiver that raced through him.

  “Davlin, you know why I haven’t visited...”

  He halted as Davlin turned away. His brother went to the mirror and stared into it. Jarrett’s eyes were drawn to his reflection. The stark contrast between them was so obvious that Jarrett couldn’t stop staring at it.

  “Go on, he’s waiting for you,” said Davlin.

  A door shut in the hallway.

  Jarrett shivered. This time his fear was so great he couldn’t move. “Where are the others, Mother, Carew, and Marcar?”

  Davlin studied him with his dark eyes. “They’re here, waiting with Father.”

  Jarrett turned as he heard the creak of a door in the hallway and his eyes met his sister’s. She stood against the railing, her hands folded before her, her long, red hair falling down her back. Jarrett’s throat tightened around his raging emotions. He hadn’t seen her in so long, too long.

  She beckoned him to her. She had been the only one who’d taken pity on him as a child, sneaking into his room to stroke his hair and clean his wounds after...

  ...not even his own mother had dared to come to him after his father had...

  He couldn’t bring himself to say the words. He couldn’t allow himself to remember.

  “Jarrett, you’ve finally come home,” she said. Then her dark eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you come to me?”

  Jarrett moved forward until he stood before her, but she didn’t reach for him. Her gaze darted over his face and then fixed on his eyes. “Father waits for you,” she said quietly, and motioned down the hall.

  “I don’t want to go, Carew,” he said. He realized he was shaking uncontrollably now.

  His sister’s face grew hard. “You don’t have a choice,” she said. “Don’t you see, you aren’t like the rest of us.”

  He’d lived his entire life noticing the enormous differences between himself and his siblings. While he was tall and swarthy, they were shorter like their father with red hair and fair skin. When he was younger, he’d thought that he was ill-formed and ugly, and they were handsome. He was ashamed of his sharp features and darker skin, and especially ashamed of the blue eyes that had always acted like a beacon of his difference to other townspeople when his mother took all of the children out with her.

  “Please don’t make me go,” he said, then blinked at the sound of his own voice. It sounded far too young for his years.

  She shook her head and backed away from him. As he watched, she seemed to disappear. The door at the far end of the hallway opened again, but this time stood ajar. Jarrett was terrified. He hunched his shoulders and bowed his
head as he had as a child. He needed to escape. He needed to run away from this house.

  His heart was thumping against his ribs, making him feel light-headed and weak. His breathing had become a rapid pant. The pain in his arm had moved into his shoulder, making concentrating difficult, especially because the heat in the house was nearly overwhelming. He knew he needed to leave. He was afraid he might actually throw himself into a stroke or heart attack if he didn’t escape, but once again, rather than fleeing, his feet moved in the direction of the open door.

  He peered inside, but the room was drowned in darkness and again his eyes were sightless in the abrupt contrast. Suddenly his mind went numb. A cold chill pass through him. He shrank from the touch, but it embraced him and drew him into the room. Slowly his eyes adjusted and in the murk, he could see figures forming out of the shadows. Figures that called back the nightmares of his childhood – Human figures, twisted and bent, flesh hanging in rendered strips, arms and legs missing, faces distorted into grotesque, misshapen phantoms of creatures they’d once been. He would have shrank from them, but he couldn’t move, his legs seemed frozen to the floor. Then Revl Murata appeared.

  His father’s red hair glowed in the darkness. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back,” he said. “Thought it was all over, thought you could escape the disgrace, but it’ll never be over. I lived with it every day. Every day.”

  For some reason Jarrett couldn’t speak, couldn’t defend himself. A strange weakness spread through him and his legs gave out. He sank to the floor.

  “Do you know what disgrace I’ve lived with? Do you know the way the townspeople look at me and whisper about me? Do you know what it was like to look at you every day and know... know what she did to me?” He spat.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Revl laughed. “You! The constant reminder of her infidelity. The constant reminder of him!”

  “Who?”

  Jarrett didn’t hear the answer. He felt the sensation that he was falling, falling deep within a bottomless hole, his body tumbling over and over. He was terrified as the darkness pressed in on him. He gasped for air, but none came. The pounding of his heart was deafening in the emptiness around him, but on he fell, struggling to force air into his body.