by Matthew Ward
Drystn wished he had known the guard was standing there. He wouldn’t have gone this way. He tried to look inconspicuous, but something about the way he moved must have given the guard a bad feeling. The guard started to follow Drystn. He walked faster, but the guard kept speeding up to keep pace.
Drystn broke into a run. As soon as he did it, he chided himself for acting suspicious. He felt a powerful force slam into his body, and the floor sped toward his head until it smacked him with a loud crack. The world flashed red then black then blurred back into view with a hazy tinge.
A metallic taste filled his mouth, and Drystn realized he must have bitten his lip. He tried to roll onto his back, but the heavy guard kept him pinned there. Drystn yelled out, but the words were muffled by the pressure on his back.
He yelled, “What are you doing? Get off me!”
The guard stayed calm. He stated, “You are being detained for suspicious behavior.”
“What? You can’t do that. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Drystn added, that you know about, in his head. “You have to charge me with something to detain me. I know my rights.”
The guard laughed. This guy enjoyed this type of thing. “Nope. Haven’t you been paying attention to anything, kid? The Ruler has declared a state of emergency, and we are now allowed to detain people who exhibit any suspicious behavior.”
“Who decides what’s suspicious? You could just tackle anyone you don’t like the look of.” Drystn struggled some more. He realized he wasn’t going to be able to argue his way out of this one.
“You’re correct.”
The guard moved, and the weight on Drystn’s back lessened. His arms were pulled back, and a rough grass rope dug into his wrists.
Drystn complained, “Is this all necessary? I’ll walk with you. You don’t have to tie my hands. I’m not dangerous.”
“That’s not for me to decide.”
“Of course it is.”
Drystn tried to roll his eyes, but the pain in his head caused him to yelp. How had Talamir Center turned into such a hostile place overnight? The guard yanked Drystn up by the rope. Drystn’s arm pulled to the side, and a sharp jolt tore through his shoulder.
“Ow! Hey. Be careful.”
The guard spit in his face. He said, “You scum. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Drystn realized any struggling would only make matters worse. He had to obey this power hungry beast if he wanted any chance at surviving. The guard dragged him down the hall, and they made a turn he had never made before.
They were going out toward Talamir City. It started to dawn on him that he might be in much more trouble than he originally thought. This wouldn’t be some minor suspicious behavior infraction. He could get charged with conspiring against the Ruler.
They left the mianl building and descended to the city. They only had to travel a few blocks before the guard pulled Drystn to a rundown building. The guard unlocked the door and shoved Drystn in. Several other robed spiorists were already there. He didn’t recognize any of them. One got up, a hopeful look in his eye that he would be released.
The guard removed the wrist bindings and shoved Drystn in with the others.
He said, “You’ll be questioned tomorrow.”
Drystn said, “Tomorrow? But there are no beds in here. This is inhumane.”
“You should have thought about that before acting suspicious.”
“Stop saying that! I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s what they all say.”
The guard slammed the door shut, and Drystn heard the lock click from the outside. Great. He looked around at the dwelling. It looked like the abandoned shell of an old building: no furniture or decorations of any sort. All they had was the dirt floor. He wondered if they would even be fed.
Drystn asked, “What is this place?”
The guy who had stood replied, “It seems to be some sort of holding cell. Don’t worry. Tonight will be bad, but it seems they’re good on their word that you will only be here the night. I’ve been here a few days, and they’ve always come for the people the next morning when they say that.”
“But I didn’t even do anything.” Drystn regretted the whine in his voice.
“Yeah. Welcome to the club.”
Drystn walked the perimeter of the building to make sure there was nothing. He finished in a corner and huddled there by himself. The floor was cold, but he considered trying to sleep. He didn’t trust these other people. Maybe they were here for real crimes. They could be dangerous.
But then he realized everyone was a spiorist. They were like him. They had probably been minding their own business. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything?
Drystn looked around now that his eyes had adjusted to the poor lighting. There were four other spiorists there. One of them was a soilist. Drystn tried to calm himself, and then approached the group. None seemed to be talking to each other. Their fear had gotten to them.
Drystn spoke with as much confidence as he could muster, “What is everyone here for?”
The soilist replied, “Same as you. Nothing. We acted suspicious.”
“Then why aren’t we doing anything? You’re a soilist. It would be simple to open the lock on the outside.”
“That may be true, but if we escape, they’ll just round us up again. We may as well just profess our innocence tomorrow and be on our way. If we broke out of here, we’d have to live as outlaws forever. That’s not the life of an innocent person.”
Why was this person so trusting of the authorities? Guilt and innocence obviously had nothing to do with this anymore. Professing his innocence wouldn’t be good enough.
Drystn said, “But what if they don’t let us go tomorrow? What if they don’t believe us when we tell them the truth? This might be our one chance to escape.”
Drystn felt the words coming out of his mouth, but he couldn’t control them. Something about the whole experience made him think this would be his last chance for escape. He was guilty. They’d probably use a truth serum and find this out. But he couldn’t escape alone. He needed the soilist’s help.
Drystn asked, “What if you just let me out?”
“No way. They’ll know it was me. I’m the only one here with the power to do it.”
This was getting frustrating. The guy was correct. Drystn decided the truth might work.
“Okay. I’m guilty. I was one of the people spying on the Ruler that caused this whole thing to happen. You have to let me out.”
A collective gasp came from the spiorists.
One of them said, “So it’s true? I thought the Ruler was being paranoid. I can’t believe someone actually did something to cause this.”
The soilist said, “Then you deserve to be punished if only for all the harm you’ve caused innocent people in all this.”
Drystn tried to bring the conversation back to the important topic of getting out.
He said, “I know. This is so much bigger than you can imagine, though. The Ruler is a part of a conspiracy with people from the First Age to keep the bairsgn alive.”
Several people who had kept their distance snickered at this. One of them called out from their dark corner, “Great. We have a crazy in here with us. Just let him out. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Drystn pleaded, “I’m not crazy. Would all of this be happening if I was crazy? The Ruler wouldn’t care if he wasn’t hiding something big like this.”
The voice from the corner said, “That’s a good point, but he’s the Ruler. He could have lots of secret information that he doesn’t want to get out. It doesn’t have to be as insane as what you just said. Why should we believe you?”
Drystn wracked his brain for anything he could say. He paced in front of the group as if he were putting on a play for them. Their eyes followed him around. At least he had made some progress. He gained more and more confidence as he talked.
“Suppose I’m right. When they give you the truth serum tom
orrow, it will probably come out that I’ve told you this. Then they’ll know that you know. You could face execution to keep that type of information secret. This is a risk I don’t think anyone here is willing to take. Suppose I’m wrong, and we go into exile for no reason. That’s not so bad. People willingly go to the Outer Ring all the time to live outside of Talamir rule.”
The people shifted uncomfortably. Maybe this would work. He felt bad about forcing all these innocent people into exile, but at least they would be together and maybe keep working toward defeating the bairsgn together.
The soilist said, “Okay. I’m in. You all can do whatever you want. Exile is probably better than returning to the oppressive regime that has taken over Talamir Center anyway.”
The person in the corner said, “But what if it gets better after they realize they’ve caught the right person? The extra security could disappear tomorrow.”
The soilist said, “Yeah. Maybe. But if that happens, then this kid is right. That might be the worst-case scenario if the Ruler is trying to destroy Talamir. You all can do what you want, but I’m getting out of here. We’ll lock you back in. You can say you were asleep or something.”
“That won’t work with truth serum.”
“Then go to sleep.” Drystn was starting to like the snark this soilist had. Drystn approached the door and closed his eyes. His mind entered the intense focus he had trained all those years to perfect. He saw the spior all around him. He made out the people in the room using his sense, then he focused on the door. A person’s spior remained steady outside.
He turned to the soilist and said, “I think there’s a guard out there, but there wasn’t when I arrived. They might only patrol sporadically.”
The soilist closed his eyes for a moment. He said, “I think I can get the lock. There’s dirt inside it. I’ll infuse it with spior from the ground, and then be able to move it like a key. Depending on the lock, it may or may not work. I’ve never done such a thing before. Not all of us are criminals.” He shot Drystn a daring look.
The two sat at the door for the next hour, waiting for the guard to leave. Drystn wished he could talk to Finr one last time. He had no idea when he would see him again, and the thought made him sick.
The other people actually did go to sleep, which meant they would have a legitimate alibi. This made Drystn feel better about leaving them. Then it happened; the guard left. Drystn huddled next to the wall to keep sensing for the guy’s return.
Drystn whispered, “Okay. Let’s do it. We have to be quick. He might just be peeing. He could be back any minute.”
The soilist worked with his fingers. Drystn had never seen a spiorist use so many physical movements. As an herbalist, he never had to manipulate plants in such a physical way. Drystn decided it probably made it easier to visualize how he moved the spior by physically making the motions. The dirt grinding on the metal made a sharp and loud noise. Surely they would be caught. Someone outside had to notice this.
Drystn urged the soilist on. “Come on. It’s making a lot of noise. We have to finish before someone notices.”
The guy said, “Almost there. It’s hard to tell exactly how this lock works, so I’m just moving stuff around until it presses against anything that gives.”
The sound got worse and louder. The horrifying crunch of metal could have woken the dead. Click. The sound ended, and the soilist gave Drystn a smug look. Drystn pressed the door to test it. It worked. The two were free. They quietly closed the door behind them.
The soilist whispered, “I think I broke the lock, so we can’t lock them in.”
“That’s okay. It will make their story more believable.”
The two snuck off, and in a minute, they were in the heart of Talamir City. They headed away from the lake and out toward the Outer Ring. Before long they reached the edge of the city, and they took their first steps into the empty area between it and the First Ring. Drystn looked back. He felt an intense sadness as he left Talamir City. He realized he might never get to come back or see his friends again. His new life had just begun, and now it was over.
They only traveled to the space between the First and Second Rings that night before sleeping on the ground. Drystn kept thinking the soilist was mad at him for ruining his life. The guy had a rugged, untrimmed beard and didn’t speak a word once the journey began.
They walked side by side as if travel companions, but nothing could have felt further from the truth. Even when they stole fruit hanging from a tree in someone’s garden, they did so by silent agreement.
The next morning, the sun peaked the cliffs and woke Drystn. He scrambled to his feet. Second Sun meant he had slept through early morning, and they risked getting caught. The soilist was nowhere to be found. Drystn turned slowly and examined the horizon in all directions. The First Ring was still visible on one side and the Second Ring was visible on the other. In between, a tall grass grew as far as the eye could see. Fields of crops broke up the grass, but Drystn wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking. He looked as hard as he could to find the soilist.
Drystn knew it was possible that the guy spooked and returned to Talamir Center to explain what he was up to. It was also possible that the guy had left to make it on his own somewhere. Maybe he returned to the village where he was born or would hide in plain sight in Talamir City somewhere.
Drystn set off toward the Outer Ring. He figured he could make it most of the way there by nightfall. He’d sleep again and then wander the ring looking for an outlaw village. Not every village on the outer ring was full of outlaws. The school was out there, but Drystn walked toward the opposite side of Talamir from the school. The last thing he needed was a professor wandering around and catching him.
Drystn tried to keep his mind occupied on productive thoughts. He tried to think of how he could get a message to Finr about what had happened. He thought about what he knew and if it would be useful for the destruction of the bairsgn. He considered stopping by the building where the beast could be seen to try to understand it better.
Drystn kept thinking that maybe if the Ruler was keeping it alive somehow, if they killed the Ruler, the bairsgn might die as well. He also kept coming back to the idea of the First Age people. What could they have to do with any of this?
Mostly, Drystn’s thoughts turned destructive. He thought about how he might never get to see the people he cared about again. He spent the day walking, and the settlements thinned. He didn’t make it nearly as far as he had hoped.
He rested in the large gap between the Seventh and Eighth Rings. Drystn felt bad about having to steal food again, but he had no money on him, and even if he did, he hadn’t seen anywhere he could purchase food. He meandered toward the river and got his water there. When he settled in for the night, the physical exhaustion from exercising all day let him sleep easy.
The next day he made to the Outer Ring. The first village he came to was full of small, rundown grass huts. A woman with three kids wandered into the village. They each carried pails of water from the river.
Drystn knew he had arrived. He examined the interactions of the woman and children and decided they had to be her children. They had the intimate familiarity that could only come from years together. This meant she was in direct violation of the one-child policy: an outlaw village.
Drystn walked through the town to see if he could get any more information. One man was out in a small herb garden, but he rushed into the house at the sight of Drystn. Drystn examined the garden with approval. All the herbal necessities for standard medicine were there.
The next several people Drystn encountered all did the same thing. Only then did he realize they were afraid of him. He wore an official green robe. They might have thought he had been sent here from the government to check up on the village.
Drystn moved toward the village center. He needed to find someone with authority to talk to. He realized he had no idea how places like this ran. Did they have their own internal governing system
? A large, muscular man walked up to Drystn. He had a stern, intimidating look in his eye.
He spoke firmly, “You need to leave. You have no business here.”
Drystn couldn’t believe an outlaw village would reject him like this. He always thought they accepted everyone.
He pleaded, “Wait. You don’t understand. I need a place to stay. I can work for my keep. I bet you don’t have an herbalist. Every village needs an herbalist.”
“Well, we don’t. Go back to your privileged life at Talamir Center or wherever you came from.”
“I can’t. I’m an outlaw. I escaped prison.”
The man gave Drystn a curious look that said, go on. Drystn told what he had done, and how he had uncovered a conspiracy with the Ruler. Drystn left out the details of the people of the First Age and the bairsgn to not overwhelm the man. The man nodded throughout the story. This probably fit with his narrative of the evil government suppressing the people.
When Drystn finished speaking, the man said, “I haven’t been here long, but you can stay with me and my wife. At least for now. You were right. We do need an herbalist. Can you deliver babies? You’ll be doing that a lot as well. As you might be aware, many people are here to escape the one-child policy.”
Drystn cringed at the thought. He had never delivered a baby, but he knew he could quickly treat most complications with teas he had learned about.
Drystn said, “I’ll take it. Thank you very much, sir. You have no idea what this means to me.”
“I’ll have none of this ‘sir.’ Call me Naethr.”
“I’m Drystn.”
Naethr led Drystn back to his hut. A pot boiled over a small fire pit in the center of the room. A woman rushed up to Naethr. She didn’t hide her concern in the least.
“What is this? You were supposed to get rid of him, not bring him into our house.”
Drystn marveled at how quickly news of his arrival had spread. He hadn’t seen this woman, yet she knew he was here. Drystn figured it must be a system set up to protect people if any sort of government agent showed up. Naethr explained the situation. The woman’s expression turned to one of anger.