I stopped halfway. Lilith turned toward me, but she knew that she had to continue walking forward. I watched her walk the rest of the way to the Trigons. Focusing on her every step away from or toward us, we were all entranced by her movement.
When she reached them, they visibly relaxed. I felt a hand on my shoulder. The boy had joined me in the middle.
Together we watched Lilith talk to one of the Trigons. We couldn’t tell what she said; all we could see was the Trigon nodding at the end of their short conversation. The Trigon and three others proceeded to make their way toward us with Lilith.
All that was heard in the clearing was the thud of their wooden weapons on their backs as they advanced. The Trigons wore no armor and their uniforms made no sound, not even the slightest rustle.
As they came closer, I got my first real look at them. The swarm of Red they looked like before, dissolved until I could make out each soldier.
Their uniforms, if you could call them that, were coarse articles of clothing seemingly collected randomly. Each was a different shade of Red, a different texture. There was no sense of consistency except from afar.
Lilith bounded back to us, while the rest took their time. Attaching herself to my hand again, Lilith was all smiles. Unable to tell what had occurred, I found myself looking to the apparent Trigon leader for an explanation.
I felt the eyes of the three other Trigons on the boy and me. They were checking us over for weapons and other threats that we might pose, and the boy seemed to be doing the same to them. I looked at the leader and was surprised to see that she was a Trigon woman and not a male, as I had expected.
Her faces were all hard and decorated with scars, but my attention was consumed by one on her middle face. It was deeper than the rest. Cutting through the corner of her top lip and the center of her bottom lip, it configured her face into a permanent snarl. Where the scars had not marked her face, her skin was tanned Red from the sun. Surveying every inch of me, her eyes bore outward in a stone-like stillness.
Abruptly, her hand whipped out at me, taking me by surprise. She clenched the blade at my side and, with one swift tug, yanked it off. I had forgotten that I was carrying it, but her guards seemed to think that I knew perfectly well all along.
The Trigon woman unsheathed the dagger, turning it this way and that, so that it glinted in the midday sun. She nodded to her guards who patted us over searching for other concealed weapons. When they found none, they stepped back in formation behind their leader.
“Are you with us or against us?” the woman asked, enunciating each word in a thick accent that I could not place.
“We are with the Red,” the boy quickly responded.
“Then you are with us,” she said. “Welcome.”
I looked around at her men, who had hidden their weapons as easily as they had aimed them at us earlier.
“We are the warriors of the Red cause. You may travel safely as our guests and guests of the Red cause. We will offer you shelter in exchange for returning the girl.”
Her words were stiff, but nonetheless welcoming. The promise of safety was alluring, and the boy and I decided to take them up on their offer.
“Come,” one of the leader’s guards ordered.
Never more than a few feet away from their leader, we followed behind the marching guards. Lilith was clamped onto my hand and continued that way the entire journey. Knowing that she was dependent on me brought a strange sense of comfort.
Surrounded by Trigons, we dragged on for some time. Finally, we came to an unexpected stop in a part of the forest that looked almost the same as any other part.
“Here is our camp,” one of the soldiers near the front called out.
“Disband!” another soldier barked.
At that order, all the soldiers and guards broke out of their formation and began climbing the trees.
Stopping just short of asking what we were waiting for, the Trigon leader flashed us an inquiring look. The boy put Lilith on his back and began climbing one of the Red trees. Each tree was as wide as a house, and I was astounded at the boy’s ability to climb it.
A waiting soldier shoved me forward to a nearby tree. He motioned for me to climb. I was perplexed until, upon closer observation, I realized that metal rods stuck out of the trees as a simple staircase that winded up into the treetops. At the prompting prod of the soldier behind me, I began to climb.
The way the metal rods were placed made one climb at an odd angle of around 40 degrees. An opposite hand and an opposite foot would move together in sync in a climb that resembled a bear’s walk. I was neither vertical nor horizontal, and that made it feel as if I were crawling rather than climbing.
Each circle around the tree brought me closer toward what I didn’t know. The ground grew farther and farther away from me, until the bases of the trees were almost nonexistent.
I was pulled up at the top of the staircase by another soldier. My feet landed on a wooden walkway that wound around the tree and connected it with the others. The Trigons had built a self-contained community above the ground, where they were safe from the White. There were a countless number of people swarming to and from different places. They were all busy and all appeared to have something to do. There were sturdy huts and other larger buildings I didn’t recognize; all were hidden from the ground by the trees.
“Lilith!” a voice cried out. “Grandmama! Grandpapa!”
I turned to see Lilith rush into the arms of two older Trigons. When Lilith knocked into them in her excitement, I saw that they were frailer than they first appeared, nonetheless they were elated to see their exuberant granddaughter.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Lilith’s grandmother kept murmuring, stroking her granddaughter’s hair. She was weeping Red tears.
The picture before me was the essence of love. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it felt like to be Lilith in this moment. I wished so badly to feel what she surely must have felt. In that second, I wanted to be her. My entire being throbbed with a need to feel. Was it love that she felt? Was it happiness? Maybe relief? Or maybe it was all three. I would never know, but I wanted all of it.
Someone next to me cleared their throat and I turned my back to the scene before me.
“I’m sorry for interrupting, but may I lead you to your lodgings for the night?”
It was a young Trigon boy no different in age from the boy or me. His hair was a lighter shade of Red than Lilith or the boy’s coloring, as if it had been bleached by the Red sun. He had freckles across his noses and small dimples when he smiled.
“I’m Nalin,” he said.
“I’m-”
“You’re our most prized guest,” he interrupted. “I know who you are.” He laughed an easy laugh that made me envious.
I wished I could smile that easily. I put on a fake smile and laughed a fake laugh, which struck all the wrong chords, but he seemed not to notice, or if he did, he too put on a fake smile.
“Isn’t it exciting?” he babbled away, as we walked. “We’re finally taking a stand against the White ... Well, not that we haven’t before, but this time we have a fighting chance!” Nalin chattered on, leaving me hanging on his first sentences.
“Anyways, here are your quarters,” he said, as he stepped into a hut.
The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of Red wood, probably from a tree in the Ever Forest. The furnishings were sparse, yet they conveyed the same sense of warmth that the Red wood had channeled. There was a simple wooden bed in the center of the quaint room with a richly decorated Red quilt. Next to it was a modest bedside writing table with a wooden chair and a window view. Hung on the back of the chair was a change of clothes. They were mismatched shades and textures of Red as Nalin and the others of the cause wore, and I made a mental note to put them on as soon as I could, in order to blend in with our hosts.
When I thanked Nalin, saying that the accommodations were much more than were necessary, his face lit up.
“Y
ou should see the other rooms, especially the commander’s. Her rooms are so big!” Nalin said enthusiastically, his Red hair getting into his eyes. “Oh, I almost forgot! I was supposed to tell you that your traveling companion’s room is right next to yours.”
Knowing he meant the boy, I nodded.
Then his voice took on a more formal note. “Breakfast is at first light and you are expected to dine in the commander’s quarters. It’s the big round building. You can’t miss it.” With that last remark, Nalin exited and left me to survey the room.
The room was filled with light and pulsed with a sense of Red. As I made my way over to the writing desk, I looked up to see a cutout in the ceiling. It was just big enough for the shape of the blood Red sun to fit in it. Its crimson rays filled every corner of the room and thrummed with life.
I sat down in front of the old-fashioned desk and ran my fingers through its small openings and over its hollow drawers. My blind fingers paused on every dent and scratch that the table hid. I found comfort in its irregularities.
I glanced outside and watched the people go past. The window was just a cutout in the wall with no glass in it, but the people paid no heed to me. The window reminded me of a picture frame; its subjects the Trigons and the humans mingling together.
The people were all dressed in the same Red as the Trigon soldiers. They were unified by that color, yet they were all different, as were their shades of Red. They mingled in pockets, while walking with quick strides. Group after group passed me until I realized that the Trigons and humans never socialized unless it was absolutely necessary. They only conversed with their own kind and pretended to be blind to the other.
A small group of Trigon teenagers, laughed and shoved each other playfully. They, unlike their elders, seemed largely oblivious to the horror around them. A male and female human wandered arm-in-arm, the woman’s face creased in concern. I wondered what had caused that line of worry to mar her otherwise attractive features.
I spent much of the afternoon watching their lives go by my window. It was dark before I knew it and the warm glow in my room was quickly replaced by lurking shades.
I crept into bed, pulling the Red quilt with me. The bright color of the quilt was washed out by the darkness. Now, the face of the White moon appeared through the cutout in the ceiling directly above me. It seemed to peer into the room, as if it were looking for something. But when it didn’t find what it wanted, it promptly left, leaving a hole of darkness where it once stood.
CHAPTER 7
I awoke with a start; the sun was already fully on my face. I instantly realized that I had overslept and was late for breakfast. Thankfully, I had fallen asleep in my clothes, so all I had to do was sprint to the commander’s quarters.
Nalin was correct in that the commander’s quarters were hard to miss. It was the largest building in sight and it was perfectly circular. Two guards holding crossbows stood on either side of the stately wooden doors, but they didn’t even balk when I burst into the room.
The room contained a stately table at which six people, including the boy and the commander, were seated. It stretched from the door to the other side of the room and behind them on both sides stood servers. Every head turned to stare at the sound of my entrance and watched as I took my seat next to the boy.
“So nice of you to join us,” the commander, who was sitting at the head of the table, said coolly. She whispered something to the people on either side of her, causing them to nod.
In front of me sat a Trigon man with a handsome mustache on each face. When he saw me, he winked. Past his head, I saw the familiar faces of Nalin. Before composing his faces into the exact same blank stare that all the other servers seemed to be wearing, he gave me a secret smile.
“This is my secretary,” the commander introduced the man to the left of her. “And these are my two generals: General Devonport ...” she paused as the woman to her right curtly nodded and then continued, “... and General Gerrard.”
The man in front of me smiled at his introduction. I instantly decided I liked General Gerrard better than General Devonport and the commander’s secretary. There was something about the soft twinkle in his eyes. “We were just discussing our plans for the Red cause,” the commander said. “We would like to enlist your assistance. We need all the help we can get. Yours especially.”
I was surprised that she had singled me out in that way. I also wondered of what help I could possibly be, since I didn’t have any skill at all in fighting.
“Well, what do you say?” General Devonport asked impatiently, disrupting my thoughts and scattering them about aimlessly.
“I ... I don’t know exactly what to say.”
“Surely you must be honored that the commander especially wants your help,” General Devonport replied.
“I am ... very much so,” I said, but my words were much more certain than my voice. “I just don’t know how I can help.”
“How are you with one-on-one combat?” the commander asked.
“I’ve never tried it.”
“And public speaking?” she asked.
“In front of large groups?”
“The very sort,” the commander answered.
I recalled the last time I was supposed to speak in front of a large audience. It was last year, at a school function. Before I went up on the stage, I had felt so nauseated that I had to have someone else give my speech for me, while I hid in the bathroom. I didn’t even get to speak, but I didn’t need to, to know that I would have made an utter fool out of myself if I did.
“No,” I simply said.
There was a moment of silence before the commander spoke again. “We’ll find a way for you to help with the Red cause.”
I didn’t feel as remotely sure as she did, but in a short time, I had learned to trust her.
The conversation droned on to other topics of great importance to the cause, but of little significance to me. For the most part, the discussions seemed to swim right over my head or through one ear and out the other. Having missed breakfast, all I could think about was the gnawing hunger that ate at my stomach.
In the middle of one of the commander’s rants on artillery safety, my stomach sounded a loud gurgle. My appetite had chosen a fine time to return. While the commander genuinely didn’t seem to hear it in the midst of her raving, her secretary and General Devonport had a hard time pretending not to notice. Nalin, standing behind the two generals, was frantically trying to stifle his laughter.
General Gerrard shot me a sympathetic smile and soon I felt something land in my lap. I looked down to see a piece of bread that he had without doubt saved for me. I flashed General Gerrard a smile back in return. This was our secret; I hid it in my pocket and ate pieces of it as the talk between the generals, the commander, and the boy prolonged.
When, at last, the conversation dwindled down to only a patter of words, the commander rose from her seat and ultimately excused us all. Everyone stood at once, trying to get out of the room quickly and to whatever other business they had to attend.
“Feel free to visit me at any time in my rooms,” General Gerrard said kindly. “It tends to get lonely sometimes.”
When he left, the room was empty save for the commander and myself. Before I could speedily excuse myself, the commander asked me to stay.
“I was hoping that you could be of great service to me; to the Red cause,” she said. “I noticed your care of the Trigon girl, whose parents both perished at the hands of the White. You showed remarkable love considering the short length of time you knew her. She was a stranger, yet you helped her.”
I thought of what the commander might say if she knew of my numb heart. I doubted that she would have congratulated me on my ability to fake emotion. “It was nothing really,” I finally said. “It was what every stranger in my shoes would have done to help a child.”
“But still,” the commander persisted. “What you did was no small feat. That, combined with your human blood,
I think you would be a worthy choice to lead the Red cause ... to lead us.”
What she said astounded me. I couldn’t think of myself leading anything, much less the cause and the commander.
“To lead the Red cause?”
“Precisely that.”
“But why?”
“The prophecy, of course. A human without a past will rise up to champion the Red cause. You are that human.”
“I’m ...” I tried to think of a good word to use. “... flattered that you would think me a worthy choice to lead the Red, but I don’t think I’m that person-”
“Nonsense,” the commander cut me off, “the boy told me a seer came to you and recognized you as a very possible leader for the Red cause.”
“The girl,” I remembered the pixie-like girl we met by the river. The girl who had given me a blade.
With that, the commander produced my blade. My hand subconsciously reached out to grab it, but she whipped it from my grasp.
“The boy also told me that you saw something reflected in the blade. If that isn’t proof enough that you are our leader, I don’t know what is.” I shook my head.
“I’m not a leader, of you or of anyone. This seer said I’m only a possibility. That doesn’t mean that I’m the one.”
“Are you familiar with children’s stories?” the commander asked me suddenly.
“No, not really.” I didn’t know where she was going with this.
“Do you know of our history?”
I was puzzled with what she meant. “I’ve heard of the first Red cause and the girl who led it. Especially the girl.”
“But do you know the story like children do?” The commander asked. “Come.”
The commander took me by the hand and led me out of the room. We passed the guards who stood to either side of the door and walked by clusters of houses with people milling about, until I realized what the commander was showing me.
“In the land of the blind where sight is restored,” children jumping rope sang to the rhythm of the balls being bounced. “Happy made are kinsmen whose kisses greet the poor.” Every other word, the rope slapped the ground keeping pace. “But where is the eye when the streets run Red?” The children’s smiles and laughter were a stark contrast to what they were singing. “Where is the eye when streets are filled with dead?”
All That Is Red Page 5