by Chris Miller
I sat up and surveyed the remainder of the space. In a stroke of luck, it appeared as though previous travelers had used the tower as a shelter before us and left a variety of objects behind.
The ashen remnants of a campfire lay in the center of the room, complete with a pile of scrap wood. There were other things strewn about as well, things we could use for survival: a collection of bottles (some broken, others not), some rope, a small pile of hay in the corner, (which someone had gathered together as a bed), along with some ragged, old clothes left hanging on a peg on the wall.
I lifted my father in front of me and dragged him across the room toward the make-shift bed. His legs slid across the floor, leaving a trail of black blood in the dirt behind us. Every time I saw it, I was reminded that my father was still infected. He belonged to the Shadow. As badly as I wanted to believe otherwise, there was nothing I could do to change the reality that he had never been rewritten. I could only hope the Veritas Sword would heal his wounds and buy us time to meet with Aviad soon.
As we neared the hay pile, a rustling movement caught my eye and I nearly dropped my father from the shock. As it turned out, we weren’t alone in the tower after all; we had rodents. A decent sized rat-like creature scurried across the room and squeezed through a small hole in the wall. The creature peeked back out at me and hissed unhappily at my intrusion. It had a small piggish snout, teeth that stuck out like a wild hog’s and cat ears that pointed straight up. Before I could find something to throw at it, the rodent scurried back through the hole into the soggy outdoors in search of a more private home.
As I laid my father in the bed of hay, I noticed his skin was as cold as ice from the frigid rain and night winds. Without clothes to keep him warm he would soon freeze. For that matter, so would I. His physical wounds were easily healed by my Veritas Sword and I set to gathering some scrap wood for a fire. Luckily, there was more than enough laying about the tower. With a few sparks of my Veritas Sword, I had a roaring blaze in the center of the room in no time. The space warmed quickly and the fire brought a homey feeling to the otherwise drab place.
Next up was dry clothes, which former travelers had so graciously provided. I dressed my father first and then stripped my own wet clothes and pulled a tunic over myself. The sleeves were a bit too long for my arms, but it would have to do until my clothes dried. As I rolled up my sleeves I noticed that somehow in all the commotion of Belac’s castle, the screen of the Symbio device on my wrist had shattered completely. Considering it useless, I pried the device off my wrist and tossed it into the corner of the room.
I strung the rope across the room and hung my jeans and T-shirt on the line to dry next to the fire. Things were starting to come together well.
A pair of broken bottles would make a perfect pair of cups, so long as we were careful to mind the sharp edges. I broke the stem of the bottles off completely and set them outside the door to collect rain water. As far as survival went, we were doing well. Water, fire and shelter—the three biggies were covered. Food would have to wait for now.
When at last I had nothing else to busy myself with, I slumped beside my father on the hay and let out a long tired sigh.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” I said. “We’re going to make it.”
How exactly we would make it, I didn’t know. Dad’s brow was wet, but it wasn’t from the rain. He was sweaty from whatever sickness ailed him. He was still breathing, but at times it seemed labored and painful. I wanted to help, but I had no clue what to do next. So I just sat beside him, wiping his brow with my sleeve, counting every labored breath my father took.
So much had happened over the past couple of days I could hardly process it all. My family had been kidnapped, Trista was gone, my father was Belac, and Desi…I didn’t know who she was. With my father nearly dead, I wondered if I would ever find any answers.
A sudden knock at the door pulled my attention away. I raised my sword to the ready and pulled the door open. I found myself face to frightened face with the bearded prisoner from Belac’s castle. I had planned on going back to rescue him but in all the commotion I had completely forgotten him. The man looked like a drowned rat; his long, greasy, black hair hung limp in the rain, framing his scraggly beard, which was matted with mud from his climb up the hillside. He was wrapped in a green cape to keep warm. Despite his grubby appearance, something was familiar about him that I hadn’t noticed at the prison. It was the look in his eyes…strong and determined. But his gaze softened instantly when he saw me.
“Hunter?” the man said weakly, still standing in the pouring rain. His voice was shaky, not the least bit as stern as it once was, but I recognized it immediately.
“Faldyn, is that you? What happened? What are you doing here?”
“Trying to keep dry at the moment,” Faldyn replied simply, looking up at the sky, which continued to pour down relentlessly. “May I…join you?”
“Yes, of course, come in,” I said, motioning him in.
He gladly entered the tower and removed his green cape. He shook the water from his hair and stepped up to the fire to get warm. I watched in stunned silence as the man who had once been a captain of the Codebearers, a man who had conspired against the Resistance to steal Hope, now sat huddled next to the fire I had made. Seeing him like this, I hardly knew what to think…or to say.
“It is a good fire,” Faldyn said matter-of-factly. “Thank you.”
The words sounded strange coming from his mouth. I had never known Faldyn to be a man who was thankful for much of anything. At least, he never showed it if he was.
“You’re welcome,” I said in return, but when Faldyn’s eyes crossed the room to the place where my father lay, his face paled at the sight.
“It can’t be…. Is that Caleb?” Faldyn asked, somewhat reluctantly.
“Yes,” I answered. “You know my father?”
“Know him?” Faldyn asked excitedly. “He’s the reason I came to this cursed swamp in the first place. I’ve been searching for him for some time. He has something I need…something of great importance to the Resistance.”
“I thought you left the Resistance,” I said, trying to avoid sounding like I had a clue what he was talking about. Truth be told, I didn’t, but I had my suspicions that Faldyn might be after the new Bloodstone for himself. It only made sense. He had often used questionable means to gain an advantage over the Shadow. I had no reason to believe he had changed.
“Is that what they told you?” Faldyn asked. “In a way, I suppose they are right. But it’s not exactly how I would have put it.”
No surprise there. He always had his own spin for everything.
“What really happened then?” I asked, deciding to humor him.
Following a long silence, Faldyn began to tell his side of the story. “After Venator’s fortress was taken, I found Hope. She was badly wounded by a Veritas Sword. Someone had stabbed her clean through.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, not wanting to admit that it was my fault…that I had stabbed Hope. Faldyn shot a curious glance my way before continuing his story.
“Anyway, I took her back to the Resistance. We treated her wounds but as you know the wounds of a Veritas Sword cannot be healed except by the Author himself. All we could do was watch the life slowly drain from her body until I could stand it no longer. I knew that if Hope died, the Resistance would soon follow. We had to do something. Hope was not like the rest of us, she was something greater.”
“You mean a Virtuess?” I asked, often wondering what the term meant.
“Yes,” Faldyn replied, a look of surprise lighting his eyes. “How did you know that?”
“Petrov told me,” I said, “the night before he died.”
The news of Petrov’s death seemed to come as a shock to the man. He had been away from the Resistance for so long he had failed to keep up with what had happened in his absence.
“Oh, I’m…sorry to hear that,” he said in a distant voice. I didn’t want to believe him but in reality I sensed the news had actually hurt him. He was being genuine.
“I had hoped to meet up with Petrov again soon. The two of us had a bit of a misunderstanding before. We didn’t part on good terms, I’m afraid. When I heard they were transporting her to Obdurant for further care, I was worried. There were rumors that the Shadow intended to attack the transport but I knew that Petrov wouldn’t believe me if I told him. I decided to keep my distance and do my part to ensure the transport made it to its destination. When the Shadow attack happened, I did the only thing I could think to do. I secretly stole Hope away, so the Shadow could not find her.”
“That’s not the way I heard it,” I challenged. “I heard you mounted the attack with the Shadow…that you stole Hope.”
Faldyn appeared visibly hurt by the statement, but I wasn’t buying it.
“People believe what they want to believe,” Faldyn said sadly. “They needed a villain and they felt I fit the part. But I can assure you that I did not work with the Shadow…. I would never do that again. I was trying to help. I was trying to save Hope from certain death.”
“Then why didn’t you just return Hope to the Resistance and prove your innocence? Why did you hide?”
“Because nobody would believe me,” he said in remembrance. “They would just think it was the same as before…that I was…betraying them again.”
His eyes searched the crackling flames as he spoke. Something had happened in his past that this man was not proud of. It was something that had scarred him and haunted him to this very day.
“You betrayed the Resistance?” I asked, not entirely surprised by his ability to do so but at the same time amazed that he had actually confessed to it so easily.
“Yes, I pretended to be one of them, but inside I didn’t truly believe the Author had the best plan in mind. The Shadow used me as a spy within the Codebearer ranks. I would listen to their strategies and feed the Shadow the answers they needed. A lot of men died because of me. Eventually, I was discovered and I ran away. But once the Shadow realized I was no longer of use to them, I wasn’t treated as one of them either. I was a man without hope. That is when I first met Aviad. For the first time in my life I believed that the Author did care. Everything I had learned about the Codebearers as a Shadow spy suddenly became real to me. The training, the Veritas Sword, the Author’s Writ…all of it. I became a Codebearer in my heart that day, but I knew there was no way the Resistance would ever accept me…not after all I had done.”
I found a lump growing in my throat. Was I actually feeling sorry for this man? Either he was an amazing actor or I had truly misjudged him.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, Aviad had his own plan for me. He gave me a special gift and a promise to deliver to the Resistance—a child. Her name was Hope.”
My jaw nearly hit the floor. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Faldyn had brought Hope to the Resistance?
“You look surprised,” Faldyn noticed.
“Yeah, I guess…everything I thought about you was…wrong,” I answered.
“Not everything,” Faldyn admitted. “I didn’t exactly want Hope to go back to the Resistance. She was so weak and frail when I found her in Venator’s chamber that I feared she was dead already. I knew that as long as Hope lived, the Resistance would be safe. After I saved her a second time, I kept her in the safest place I could think of and put her into hibernation with one of the Shadow’s potions I had in my possession from when I was a spy. The cave protected by the dragon proved to be the perfect place to hide her.”
“But then why did you leave her? If you truly cared, you could have stayed with her.”
“Yes, I wanted to, but there was something else I felt I needed to do. I needed to recover an item I knew your father once had in his possession. I tracked him all the way here where I ended up being captured by that wretched troll. I’ve been his prisoner for longer than I care to know. Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought of Hope and what has become of her.”
I spent the next several minutes sharing what had happened during my previous visit to Solandria, how we found Hope and watched her die at the hands of Xaul. I told him how she had been rewritten by the Author and was marked as one of the Seven. The story brought tears to Faldyn’s usually stoic expression. Wiping the tears away, he released a long, drawn out wavering breath of relief. The burden he had carried to save Hope had been lifted. Suddenly, his face took on a new expression. Despite all Faldyn had done, Hope had been rescued by the Author’s own plan.
“It is good to know he has things under control, isn’t it?” Faldyn said at last. “I should have known he was able to save her in his own way. I just let my emotions get in the way I guess.”
“Hope has a way of doing that,” I asked.
“Yes…yes she does,” Faldyn said with a smile.
For the first time I found myself agreeing with the man. I too had nearly let my feelings for Hope keep me from allowing the Author’s plan to unfold. In a way, I was no different than Faldyn. Both of us would have done anything to save her. We had both been too short-sighted to allow the Author’s plan to unfold in his own time. Even as the thought crossed my mind, I was reminded of Trista and my father. I decided to trust the Author with their fate now, even as I had done with Hope’s before. There wasn’t much else I could do.
Faldyn’s stomach growled like a lion that hadn’t been fed in weeks.
“You don’t happen to have anything to eat around here, do you?” Faldyn inquired. “I’m afraid that scab of a troll, Belac, didn’t feed me too well when I was in his keep.”
“I know,” I said, remembering the leech mush I had survived on during my brief stay in Belac’s prison. “I wish I did, but I’m afraid we’re on our own.”
“That’s too bad,” Faldyn sighed. “I could have used a good chunk of meat.”
Out of nowhere, something fell to the floor between us—the limp body of a dead rat-thing that looked identical to the one I had scared away. A rustling sound overhead drew our attention up to the beams. A lonely black bird hopped from plank to plank, searching for shelter and a meal. The sight of it made my jaw tense. There was only one bird, but it reminded me of Vogler…perhaps it was still him.
“Caw, caw,” the black bird replied before flying away into the rainy night.
“Well now,” Faldyn said, picking up the rodent by its tail, “it looks like the Author was a step ahead of me yet again.”
“You’re not actually going to eat that, are you?” I asked, contorting my face at the sight of the horrid little animal.
“Actually, they’re quite good if you can get past their appearance,” Faldyn replied. He scavenged the ground and found a length of stick which he pushed through the body of the rodent. He did what he could to remove the creature’s skin and held it over the fire to roast.
“How did you find him?” Faldyn asked while he was waiting for his supper to cook. “Your father, I mean.”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“I have nowhere to go,” he answered. “Might as well pass the time with the tale. It will give us something to talk about anyway.”
I decided to tell him about my journey to find my father, leaving out the part about the Eye of Ends. It was good to have someone to talk to. I didn’t fully trust Faldyn yet, especially after all that had happened with Desi. I was starting to wonder if there was anyone I could trust fully anymore, besides the Author. When I got to the part about my father being Belac, I hesitated, wondering how Faldyn would take the news. Seeing as I had once been a prisoner of Belac, I knew how much I had wanted to get even with the troll.
“When I came back from the mirror,” I explained, “my father was lying on the floor and I saved him from the fire. Only he…wasn’t
really himself.”
“How do you mean?” Faldyn asked, examining the smoking corpse of his rat meal.
“His face was all screwed up. He looked like….” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I was frightened by what Faldyn might think, which is why it came as a shock when Faldyn finished the sentence for me.
“Belac,” he said knowingly.
“Yes…how did you know?”
“I figured it out some time ago. The longer I stayed with him the more I realized he wasn’t a real troll at all. Trolls don’t live on leech blood. Belac’s what we call a Speculumbra, a Shadow of the mirror. It’s a parasite really that transforms its host into something it most desires.”
I didn’t fully understand why anyone would want to live like Belac, especially my father. But one thing was good, it meant my father wasn’t to blame for the things Belac had done.
“So, Belac wasn’t my father after all, that’s good.”
“Well, yes and no. A Speculumbra feeds off of its host, living out its unhindered desire. Your father wanted to be free of the Author and free of the Shadow. He wanted an escape. The mirror offered him that chance, but what it offered was a lie…a trap. Caleb saw himself as powerful and great…and in his own way he was…but he was also a slave. Your father believed he was free, but he was a slave to himself…to Belac, a prisoner of the mirror.”