Watson faced the direction they had chased the wolves, then back to Adam. “Even a person who is ostensibly childlike, if he turns your eyes to gold as your treasure, be assured—he is from the city, not the cottage.”
“But they told me to trust the Ruler. Isn’t that the same thing you’ve been telling me?”
“Their lie was not one of words, but of definition. It is true that faith alone is required. But faith is believing what is promised, not believing in what is desired. Your ability to believe has suffered two blows—one from the wolves, who make you trust in the wrong things, and another from the little ones, who infect your eyes with doubt. One prevents faith, and the other misdirects it.”
“You said the wolves injected poisons that make me love the wrong things. Is there ... a cure?”
“There is. But you must understand—the cure is excruciating.”
“I don’t care how painful it is. Give it to me. Please. I don’t want to die.”
“You are already dead,” Watson said. “And if you truly die, only then can you live. The cure will destroy the part of you that is dead. Then you can have life that will heal your wounds.”
Adam turned his head against the rock and closed his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just want the cure. I don’t care about the risk. Without it, I’ll die anyway.”
Watson met Abigail’s eyes and nodded. “He is ready.”
Chapter 14
Abigail stepped forward and sat on a log opposite Adam. She took a leather satchel from around her neck and set it on the ground in front of her.
Conversation ceased. The only sound came from far above—the pleasant rush of the wind through the trees. All eyes fixed on the satchel.
“Adam, I want to give you something. You need to take it and hold it tightly in your hand. If you do, it will strengthen you. Will you take hold of it?”
Adam nodded.
She reached into the satchel, felt around, and lifted something out—an item wrapped in velvet cloth. She placed it on the needle-strewn soil before Adam. She then closed the satchel, fastened the straps, and placed it back around her neck. Then she lifted her eyes to meet his.
Adam stopped breathing as, corner by corner, Abigail unwrapped the item. She set the cloth aside and placed the item on the log.
It looked like an old gray piece of wood, smooth from wear.
Adam lifted his eyebrows. “A scrap of wood?”
She gently shook her head, then picked it up and held it in her open palm. Now he saw—it was not a mere piece of wood.
As he studied it, he began to perceive subtle streaks of blue running the length of the piece. He ran his finger down the colors then turned it over in Abigail’s hand. On the other side, another color appeared. He had never seen this color before—or any like it.
Adam sat transfixed. The more he studied it, the more colors he saw. “This is amazing. What ... how does this ...”
“It’s important,” she said, holding it out to him, “that you hold the colors in your mind. If they fade from your memory, study the piece again. That will give you strength to walk.”
“Permanent strength,” Watson added. “The gem you hold in your hand will never wear out, never decay. It will exist in good condition ten thousand years from now. And if you grip it tightly, it can spark new life in you that will endure just as long.”
Adam took the piece with his thumb and forefinger, turning it and holding it up to the light. Inscribed on the piece were the words, “The banquet is like a treasure hidden in a field. A man finds it and in his joy, trades all his gold for the field.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“Look at it again. What was it that made the man give up everything he had?”
Adam studied the words. “His ... joy?”
“Yes! That’s exactly right. Now think—how could joy drive a man to give up everything?”
He considered the question, then looked up at Abigail, then Watson, then Kailyn, waiting for someone to explain yet another mystery. When it was clear no explanation was forthcoming, he studied the inscription again. It seemed like nonsense. Adam had felt happiness many times, but it had never driven him to rid himself of his possessions.
A gentle breeze brushed his face like velvet on his skin. A warm mist enveloped him, and his thinking became clearer. He looked again at the inscription.
Of course! Why hadn’t I seen this before?
“It was the value of the treasure. That treasure must be worth so much more than the man’s gold that he was happy to make the trade.”
Abigail’s smile affirmed his answer and radiated joy.
“Is that what you did, Abigail? Did your joy make you give up everything for a greater treasure?”
Her smile widened.
Adam had puzzled over what it was that made Abigail so attractive. She didn’t have the striking elegance of Jaqueline. She had a pretty face, but it wasn’t without flaws. A scar marred her right cheek, and her thin, curly hair had a mind of its own at times. But none of her imperfections detracted from her loveliness. If anything, they added to it. In this moment, Adam understood that her beauty derived from the joy behind that smile.
Abigail leaned closer. She pressed the piece into his hand and closed his fingers around it, then lifted his hand to his chest. “Hold this close to your heart. Only when you see the immense value of the cottage can you be cured of your love for gold.”
The piece warmed Adam’s hand, as if it were a living thing. He strengthened his grip. The tighter his grasp, the more healing warmth radiated into his hand and chest, spreading throughout his body.
Again, Adam’s desire to visit the cottage eclipsed all competing desires—like the feeling that compels a sick person to find medicine or a dehydrated man to crawl to an oasis in the desert. He rose to his feet. “I’m ready.”
*****
Anzu fumed. “You’re just letting them go? If they cross the river, they’ll be protected by guardians.”
When Adramelech kept silent, Lucius, the other lieutenant, stepped forward. “Morax is in the high country. The commander briefed him directly on his plan.”
Anzu eyed his rival. “What’s the point of that? If we take him now, we don’t need some fancy plan.”
Lucius shook his head. “Adam would still be in our hands if not for your impetuous attack on Kailyn. Now Adam has cottage pieces and has seen the colors. A direct attack now would have even worse results than your last failed attempt.”
Anzu spit his words through clenched teeth. “Adam has not been empowered and has no idea how to use the weapon he holds. A single blow from me, and he will drop it and never take it up again. I’ll go down there and finish this right now.”
“As usual,” said Lucius, “you underestimate the enemy and overestimate your own strength.”
“Maybe you want to test my strength for yourself!” Anzu moved within inches of Lucius’ face, meeting his colleague’s unblinking, icy gray eyes with the challenge of his own red-hot stare. Both warriors gripped their swords.
Adramelech stepped past his fiery lieutenants, closer to the clearing. “You will have your chance at combat soon enough, Anzu. But now is not the time. Adam is not the only one at play here. I have my sights on a greater prize.”
Lucius broke from the stare-down and turned toward Adramelech. Anzu released his sword, but not his angry gaze.
“Commander, if I may,” Lucius offered, “We must separate Adam from this group. If we bring Jensen or Alexander now, their arguments will be crushed again by those three. Adam will see it, and we will risk losing him forever. But if we could get Adam alone, I’m confident Alexander could win him over. If we use a disturbance in the river to—”
“Even if you could separate them, you would still fail,” said the commander. “Argumentation and reason will not work—not now. Arguments are most effective when they agree with appetites. Adam wants to taste the banquet, and a man hungry for the Ruler’s foo
d is hard to deceive. But a man who is craving fruit will open his heart to almost any argument that coincides with his desires. Capture a man’s appetite, Lieutenants, and the rest of him comes easy.”
Neither lieutenant dared argue. Adramelech went on. “If you remember, that is how we captured Alexander. It was not on the strength of arguments. It was by feeding his bitterness and his lust that made him desire the woman more than the cottage. Then he resisted the wind to the point of no return.”
Adramelech faced his two lieutenants. “Adam and the others will be allowed to cross the river without hindrance. No one touches them. Allow them to make their way to the banquet hall. But do not let them take the direct line up the steep face. See to it that they take the long route—the smooth trail along the ridgeline.”
The commander turned away. “Morax!”
The warrior stepped forward, still winded.
“Your task?”
“Accomplished, commander. The bag is in place. I had to fell a tree, but I’m confident I’ll be able to lead him right to the fruit.”
“Excellent.” He looked again toward Adam and the three friends. “Excellent.”
Chapter 15
As the boat approached the river’s western shore, Adam squinted skyward. “Why is it so bright?”
Kaylyn smiled. “You’ll get used to it. This is how the sun normally shines. You haven’t seen it before because the lowlands are under a cloud.” She pointed across the river. “See?”
Adam turned to the east. “Ugh. That’s disgusting.” He looked up to the mountains, then back to the east. “I’ve lived my whole life in that?”
“You can’t see the cloud while you’re in it. It’s only visible from the light.”
“What causes it? And why does it end at the river?”
“When people eat fruit, they prefer to do it in the dark. They value privacy above all because they believe it gives them freedom. The more people seek privacy, the more the atmosphere itself grants that privacy. Every year, the cloud in the lowlands grows darker. It’s one reason so few people ever escape the orchard. They hate the light.”
Watson hopped from the boat and held bow line while the others disembarked.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Adam said. “I was told crossing the river would be difficult.”
“It often is,” Watson said. “This crossing was uncharacteristically easy.”
Adam shaded his eyes with his hand and craned his neck toward the high country. “Someone must be watching out for us.”
“Do not mistake ease for guidance,” Watson said. “The best path is seldom the smoothest.”
“That’s for sure,” Kailyn said as she stood with her hands on her hips regarding the steep west side of the canyon. “It’s all uphill from here.”
“We’re going up that?” Adam said.
With a tilt of her head and a smile, Kailyn said, “You wanted to see the cottage. It’s up there.”
Twenty minutes of hiking brought them to a large boulder blocking the trail. Kailyn turned to Adam. “You’re limping pretty bad. Do you think you can climb over that?”
“It still hurts, but I feel strong. Abigail was right about the cottage piece. The healing power in that thing is unbelievable.”
“Then get moving.” She tipped her head toward Watson and Abigail. “We don’t want these two to beat us to the top!”
Adam grinned and assessed the obstacle.
Kailyn reached for a handhold to start up the boulder. “Trust me. The climb is worth it.”
“The little ones told me the power of the cottage was a myth. In fact, one of them claimed he had been through the cottage, and it was empty.”
Kailyn laid her forehead against her arm for a moment, then let go of the rock and stepped back down. Her lip quivered. “Alexander,” she whispered.
Abigail and Watson exchanged a pained glance as Watson shook his head.
“You know him?” Adam asked.
“He was my husband.”
“Your husband? You were married to Alexander?” His thoughts flashed to the battle with the powers—how Alexander was the only one who didn’t take part.
“We lost our son and he blamed the Ruler,” she said. “He shipwrecked his faith and started going to the orchard. He left me for a woman he met there.”
Adam’s stomach knotted. He wanted to say something, but ...
Kailyn started back up the boulder. “Alexander is determined to destroy faith in as many people as possible. That’s why he put that gunk in your eyes—to keep you so nearsighted that you can’t believe anything that’s not right in front of your face.”
Adam rubbed his eyes and squinted at the path ahead. “Will my eyes ever recover?”
“It’s possible. The remedy for that is the same as for the wolf bites. When faith is damaged—whether by doubt or by believing wrong things, it is restored only through wrapping your hands as tightly around the cottage pieces as you can until you can get to the cottage and receive the cure.”
The climb up the boulder aggravated the throbbing of Adam’s wounds. At the top, he sat for a moment to let the pain subside.
From this vantage point, he could see two paths. The main trail continued off to the right, angling up northward toward a ridgeline. But another faint path led due west, directly up the steep side.
“It’s the shortest route,” Watson said as the group craned their necks at the hillside before them. “That other one is an easier trail, but much longer.”
“No,” Abigail said. “Let’s not take the long way. We should get to the banquet hall as soon as possible. Let’s just go straight up.”
Adam stood, fighting back his pain. “Agreed.”
The group set out on the westward slope.
“It’s different here,” Adam said.
Watson looked at him. “You mean on this side of the River?”
“Yeah, the air is different—like it’s more ... substantive.” Adam drew a deep breath and let it out. “You’re different too. You seem more relaxed—all three of you. I take it the powers and their warriors stay in the lowlands?”
“Not always,” Kailyn said. “But we have more protections up here.”
Watson lifted a finger. “Nevertheless, we must not lose our vigilance. The possibility of attack remains ever present. We must stay alert and keep our weapons at the ready.”
Adam looked him up and down. “What weapons?”
“They aren’t the weapons of the lowlands,” Abigail said. She paused and tested three different rocks before finding one that was secure, then committed her weight to it and continued the ascent. “When you go through the cottage, you receive an assignment and a specialized weapon you’ll need to carry out that assignment. The weapon is unique—no one gets exactly the same as you.”
“So what was your weapon?”
Abigail turned and smiled—her most glorious smile yet, radiating a joy that touched Adam’s soul.
“Are you saying that’s your weapon—your smile?”
“It’s the most powerful of all our weapons,” Watson said. “We all envy Abigail.”
“But ... how is that a weapon?”
“The only way the enemy can harm us is by corrupting our desires,” Watson said. “The more a person enjoys the Ruler and his delicacies, the more good desires are strengthened and the harder it is for the enemy to pervert them.”
“And it’s a weapon that protects us all,” Kailyn added. “There have been plenty of times when my joy dried up but was rekindled just by being around Abigail.”
“The battles we fight and the enemies we engage are as invisible as our weapons,” Watson said. “A word of encouragement, a good desire, a single moment of relying on a cottage piece—each of those actions can lay waste a score of invisible enemies, and you never even know they were there.”
“And you can also lose a battle without knowing it,” Kailyn added. “They can damage your soul in ways that cripple you the rest of your life without you
even knowing it happened.”
Watson held up a finger. “Although, depending on your alertness, you can learn to become more and more aware of what’s happening in the unseen world.”
Abigail shrieked. “Look out!”
A sudden gust of wind roared from behind and, with an explosion of pain, Adam’s legs launched him to his left just as a large rock tumbling from above grazed his foot. He tucked into a roll and came to rest behind a boulder that shielded him from several more falling stones.
How did he make that leap? He was in motion before he even saw the rockslide. He had never moved like that before.
Where is Abigail? Oh, there—safe behind that tree.
His foot was moist. Am I bleeding? He touched his ankle. No, it’s not blood. It’s ... blue.
A scream echoed from the hillside. Just below Abigail sat Kailyn facing downhill with Watson at her side, holding her. The danger had passed, but Kailyn’s wrenching sobs continued.
Again, her response seemed out of character. He took Kailyn to be the strongest of the group, and the least likely to panic from a scare.
Adam and Abigail scrambled to her, taking care not to start another slide.
“Are you hurt?” Abigail asked.
Kailyn couldn’t speak through her relentless tears. Abigail sat next to her and held her while giving Watson a bewildered look.
Unable to regain her composure, Kailyn struggled to speak. “It was ... just ... it looked like ...” The spasms in her chest wouldn’t let her form a sentence.
“This is how she lost her son,” Watson whispered. “It was at the foot of a hill like this one. Some rocks gave way and came down on Kailyn and her son. By the time bystanders got them uncovered, it was too late. Kailyn had curled her body around the boy, but the pressure from the rocks smothered him.”
Adam recalled all that had happened since the little ones attacked Kailyn. He saw it all in a new light now. This woman carried such pain, yet her words, her actions—everything—had been for him. She cared more about Adam than her own troubles. Was everyone in the high country like these three? Adam had never encountered such selflessness.
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