Light Bearing

by Ben Woollard

  “Tell me!” I yelled, pushing him to the ground. Remus writhed, still gripping his head.

  “Fuck you! She’s probably dead in the mine- Ahhh!” he screamed as if his skull were splitting. I realized that the presence in him must be forcing him to stop his telling me what he knew, and I backed away. It was him, I thought, it was him all along, and all the injustices and horrors that I had witnessed came crashing down upon me as what they really were. I saw the Singular that I had been forced to shoot, the people I had arrested, and Lucie, who because of me had been sent to slave away in the north. The truth I had been avoiding flooded into me, and I realized that all those that I had captured, or who I had heard had disappeared had likely been sent there to work in the name of the UCG. All of this knowledge, which had for so long been buried deep inside me, which I had almost had the bravery to look upon but never done so, finally broke out from where it had been hidden. All my illusions were destroyed and nothing was left to hold me in the happy trance that I had for so long held to myself with a manic grip. It felt like I was being torn open, and all my faults and stupidity were laid bare before me. I did the only thing I could think to do in such a moment: I turned and ran as fast as I could until I got to the stables of the UCG. I was determined to leave Columbia, to go to the north and find Lucie, and to never come back. As I readied a horse I heard the voice appear within my mind.

  “There’s nowhere you can go,” it said, “that we will not find you. I am always here, I am always watching.” With this message came a piercing sharpness that pulsated through my skull, nearly blinding me. Ignoring it as best I could, I rode full speed through the city until I came to the edges. I went around the barricades and rode out into the outskirts and beyond, out into the woods, my head ringing so bad that I could barely see, and making me nearly fall from my horse.

  Riding through the woods I found a road and trotted down it. I was sure that Shilk would send troops right behind me, and I was afraid to stop. I rode north, hoping that by simply keeping on in that direction I would be able to find the mines, and Lucie with them. I was delirious with pain and sorrow, and I could barely think from all the chaos that the presence in my mind was wreaking. It seemed to almost have an amount of control over my body, too, and in moments of weakness I felt that it was trying to throw me from my horse.

  I rode on, nothing on me except my pistol, a small pack with flint and canvas for a shelter, water, and a single loaf of bread. I had no idea how far the mines might be, and if I had been thinking more clearly I would have realized what was likely to be waiting for me when I got there. Still, I kept going, half insane, my ears beginning to ring from the pain inside my head. I continued until the following evening. My horse was slowing, and I could tell it needed water and a chance to graze, so I stopped beside a small stream and slept for a white, letting the creature have its rest.

  All the strength and energy that had filled me since I was connected to The Device had disappeared, taken from me when I chose to leave. I understood now what the purpose of the thing living in my head had truly been: surveillance. Shilk had tricked us, pulling us in with promises of power and respect, all of which had been fulfilled, but at a cost too high for anyone to pay. I wondered at the man, and part of me mourned for the death of the ideal I had held him up to be. I felt beyond foolish to have been so easily tricked into everything I had thought and done, and if it hadn’t been for my already desperate state, I doubt I would have been able to face the reality of what I had become. The presence in me seemed to enjoy my pain, and I could feel its pleasure at the disgust I now felt towards myself. My only thought was of Lucie; she was the only chance I had to undo some small portion of everything that had happened.

  I kept riding by night, and into the following day, stopping to rest for only a few hours at a time when I was no longer able to keep my eyes open. After a while the pain inside my head receded until it was only a dull throbbing, and I thought perhaps the presence there had more important tasks to attend to. I felt a surge of hope at this idea that carried me forward to the north; I really allowed myself to think that maybe they would simply let me go, that I wasn’t worth pursuing.

  As I rode I began to notice smoke rising up ahead of me, and when it was to my left I turned along a small road that led in that direction. I thought the smoke must have been rising from the mines. I walked along, the upward drifting haze at least a couple miles up ahead, and as I went I thought I heard something move in the trees behind me. I turned and saw a man crouching with a rifle aimed in my direction. It was all I could do to spur my horse on as fast as I could as the blast of the shot resounded through the woods. More shots fired, and I realized that I had walked directly into a trap. Galloping full speed, I looked behind me to see three men on horses coming after me just as fast. Each had rifles on them, and held out pistols to shoot at me as they rode. Luckily their shots weren’t good and only one so much as grazed my leg.

  I ran forward on the road, my head in madness, and saw ahead a couple of small log-built structures. A UCG guard stood by one of them, and seeing me pulled out his rifle and fired as I approached. One of his bullets hit my horse, and it fell forward onto the ground, sending me flying over the top of it and sprawling in the dirt. I was dazed, but managed to jump up and get out of the way of the horses behind me. As they passed I pulled my pistol and fired on them three times, missing twice but hitting one of them so he fell to the ground. I sprinted for cover behind the building to my right, and I felt the splitting pain inside my head, returning with full force, as I dove behind the structure.

  Ignoring the pain, which threatened to fog my vision, and using every ounce of strength and focus remaining in my tired body, I ran around the building and fired on the guard when he appeared from the wall in front of me. I grabbed his rifle and ran with it down the hill to where I could see fires coming up from pits in the ground out in the distance. To my back, the two remaining cavalry troops shot at me, but again their shot missed me as I ran, swerving in the hope of dodging. I ducked into the tree line and waited for them to approach. Looking down the hill I saw many more such buildings that were likely home to yet more guards, all of whom now knew that I was there, and the hopelessness of my mission dawned on me. It would be suicide to storm the place.

  I shot at the two riders as they came down the hill, and sent one rolling from his horse. The other rode down towards me, shooting as he went. I crept further into the woods, hoping to hide, but the man, dismounting to take cover behind a fallen tree, fired at me anytime I tried to move. He seemed to know exactly where I was. He must be a Sanglorian, I thought with horror. Hiding would be useless; I couldn’t keep even my own thoughts from them. In desperation I bolted from where I crouched and sprinted as fast as I could through the small grove, bullets ricocheting by me. One of these shots hit me in the shoulder, and I felt a numb warmth spread where the blood soaked into my clothes. Getting to the edge of the grove I saw a horse of one of the men I had shot, and running for my life I jumped onto it, turned it back in the direction I had come and galloped away, my shoulder bleeding, making my right arm useless. I dropped my gun in my haste and my head hurt so much I felt that I would almost rather die than continue with the pain of it.

  I went south for hours, back along the road, unthinking of where I was or the futility of trying to flee an enemy who had a direct link inside my head. An idea occurred to me, and I turned the horse off into the woods, setting it to trot, and closing my eyes so that I wouldn’t know where it was that I was heading. I kept up like this for at least another hour, turning the horse at random and trusting it to find a path through the trees and undergrowth. Branches scratched my skin and every now and then one would brush my wound, sending flaring pain throughout. I kept on going, desperate to get as far into the wilderness as I could. Finally I stopped the horse and opened my eyes to look around. I felt so weak I could barely roll from the creature and examine the woods in which I stood. Everything around me looked the same, and I fel
t confident that I had come to a place where the Sanglorians would not be able to find me.

  I peeled my bloody shirt from my body and examined the spot where I was shot. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared, having gone clean through the flesh. I cleaned the wound and wrapped it with ragged strips I cut from the unbloodied portion of my shirt with a knife I found harnessed to the horse’s saddle, using what remained to make myself a sling. I searched through the saddle packs of the horse and found flint and a small bag of jerky. I ate the meat greedily before gathering together a pile of tinder and wood with my one good arm. I cleared away an area in the snow with my foot and began gathering together the small twigs and dried moss that I had gathered.

  With strenuous effort I managed to kindle a fire and grow it until I could warm myself. I took the saddle from the horse and wrapped myself in the blankets under it. Walking around my small section of the woods I found a small clearing where grass grew, and I tied the horse to a log there to let it eat in peace. I returned to the fire and sat warming myself in front of it, sucking snow and doing everything I could to keep any thought from entering my mind. Don’t think, I told myself, just don’t think and it isn’t that bad.

  I spent the rest of the day feeding the fire and trying to ignore the pain inside my shoulder and my head, which was now accompanied by the angry voice screaming over and over again that it would find me and make me suffer for the trouble I had caused. I sat there, eyes glazed, the horse now tied to a tree nearby, and it seemed that I could feel my doom approaching. In just a few days everything I had thought I knew had crumbled, and I was now an outcast and a fugitive, hunted by a thing that lived within me. Despair took me, and I was on the verge of giving up. Night fell, and I merely sat and stared into the fire.

  As I sat there, I heard a noise like a breaking branch come from the darkness in front of where I sat. I stood up, picking up the knife and holding it in front me. I felt too empty to be scared, but still I wasn’t ready to die without a fight. I heard footsteps coming closer, and then I saw the figure emerge into the firelight. It was a man of roughly my own age, although he looked tired and beaten by the elements.

  Despite his raggedness, he had a certain glow to him, and his eyes stared fixedly at me with a benevolence I had never seen in another human being. We looked at each other for a while, not speaking, and then, as if we were meeting casually in a café, he introduced himself and reached out to shake my hand. Hesitating, and with my knife still held firmly in my other hand, I shook it, and on contact I felt a shock like lightning, and the presence inside me seemed to writhe in agony, and turn all of its attention on me. Hate bubbled up from that space that still haunted the edges of my mind, and poured into me. My head rung with unbearable agony, and in it roared the voice of that great bird.

  “Kill him!” It commanded me, and pushed all its might to try and force the hand that still held the knife. I buckled, trying to control myself. I looked at the man standing in front of me, looking at me calmly as I struggled.

  “Kill him!” the voice roared inside my head, and I felt my will giving way to it. It was taking over, I realized, and I looked up in horror at the man, whose very image seemed to radiate pain upon me, yet he only looked on with serenity beyond his years.

  Chapter 11

  I ran from the outskirts until I reached the woods, delirious and unknowing where I was or which direction I was heading in. My mind had been completely shattered in those short events, and everything inside of me felt blank. I couldn’t look at the things that had happened to me, already forming memories in the center of myself: Shiloh was dead, and Momma and Grandpa likely in prison. I knew in some vague, half-thinking way that I was responsible for all of it. Tahm had warned me not to come, he’d said there might be consequences, and here I was living them, bringing them to being, and the knowledge of it threatened to destroy me.

  My boots were soaked from melting snow, and I wandered, tripping over logs and landing with my hands upon the freezing ground. My whole body shook with cold but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I felt as if I were floating above my head, merely observing everything that was happening to me. I watched from this distance as my body wandered through the darkly wooded landscape, my clothes tearing on the branches as I passed. I still carried my small pack, and it hung from my back lighter than I knew it should’ve been had it been filled with the things I needed to survive.

  I wandered all night, my eyes unfocused, everything inside of me a maelstrom. As dawn began to break atop the grey horizon, the oppressive clouds above me becoming visible as they pushed down upon the earth, I was increasingly aware of my own exhaustion. But still I didn’t stop. I walked on, avoiding all the small trails and roads that I came across, worried the searching Gov was still just right behind me. In my fear and exhaustion I thought I heard the sound of a voice yelling through the woods I’d just run through, sending panic through me and quickening my pace. I kept walking until I could bear it no longer, and collapsed beneath a tree on the needled ground.

  Laying there, shivering, I riffled through my pack in search of food, and ate the one small piece of bread I found there. I filled the small bottle that was in the pack with snow, and held it against my body to melt it. The night of running caught up with me, and I pulled my blanket around myself, curled into a heap atop the ground and fell asleep, no better than a wild animal.

  When I woke up it was dark again. I’d been dreaming I was being pursued, and I jumped up, convinced the dream was real, quickly gathered my things and stumbling on through the night. Hunger gnawed at me, and if my mind had been right I might’ve thought harder about my own survival. As it was, though, I only thought of running, running from the Gov, from the image of my dying brother, from everything that Columbia was and represented to me.

  This continued for another day until I collapsed to sleep beneath a tree for a few short hours more before continuing my way. I was thankful for the woods beyond all else, for the cover and the shelter they provided me, without which I’m sure I would’ve died. The third night that came upon me, still wandering through the trees, was a clear one, and the stars shone down in brilliance. My hunger had grown to be a pit of pain inside my stomach, and if it had occurred to me to find them, I would’ve eaten the bugs that lived inside the rotten stumps and underneath the rocks around me. I felt so weak and empty, broken beyond all belief, that I collapsed into a small clearing, my back laid against the earth, my eyes staring at the stars above. Trembling, I took out Grandpa’s cane from where it stuck out of the top of my pack, and held it out before me, looking at all the symbols on it. It was the only object I had to remind me of those I’d left behind. My hunger and exhaustion was such I sincerely felt I might be dying, and in my despair I let myself fall into the abyss of that feeling, allowing it to bury me, until I felt everything I was begin to disappear.

  Lying there, I let myself dissolve into the image of the vault above me, seeking in it some kind of consolation. I was so tired, and I wanted nothing more than to be completely gone, to become the stars themselves and leave the torture of my human life. I stared up at them and felt something was trying to communicate with me, as if the blinking colors of each star were a kind of code directed to me. The more I looked, the more certain I became, and my sight fixated on a single star that hung direct above me. As I looked at it, everything else around it turned to black, and it seemed to me a tunnel had formed between it and myself, and through that tunnel streamed a blinding sense of meaning. It felt like a bolt had hit me, and my body, the ground on which I lay, the entirety of the world around me, disappeared, and I was taken somewhere else, where even what I normally thought of as my mind couldn’t come.

  It felt like waves were crashing down on me and everything became a seething ocean. I was gone, and yet something was still there. Everything around me flowed on and on forever, and it was me, and I was it. Planets, stars, stardust and the earth were in me, were my flowing blood, my breath blowing on a molten sea that grew
from it the whole of everything: life and death and joy and sorrow. All these things crashed around as if a great storm were raging, and in it all the pain that I’d ever felt, all the sadness of my small life seemed suddenly transformed, and the world was just a particle of dust, floating in the vastness of me, become eternity. The furnace of it all became my glowing chest; I swallowed everything, and in me it became. I looked down from such heights upon the earth and felt a burning love and joy and heartache so great I thought that it would tear the vastness of all being in two. Through it all I thought I saw the face of Tahm, standing on the threshold of a voice that in this state became my own, divided all and through it shook the darkness and the light, Tahm the intermediary, dictating with pen in hand.

  I became the sea of mirth and in it vanished all the world I’d ever known, replaced by that ever gaining flow, eternity and time forever intermingled, love affairs of cosmic truths. I saw in all of this a bliss that ran through even all the pain, even all the terror and the horrors of the world that threatened everywhere to eat us. What was such petty evil compared to this ever churning flood? I saw the speck that was the person who I’d been, and I couldn’t help but laugh and cry for the crippledness of all my kind, limitations of the earth and those that live and die there. I became eruption, I became it all and from the heights I saw the rise and fall of nations, the suffering of decades, the shadow on the waters of the world, and in it all I understood. All was in there, me, Shiloh, Momma, Grandpa, Theo. Everybody was always there, a part of it, and nothing could ever be destroyed, only changed and changed again as the waves rolled onward towards some far-off destination I couldn’t see, but rather felt the way a fleck of iron feels the coming magnet. I saw it all and felt that still there was space above me, somewhere higher that was just beyond my ken.