Oren jumped as Khalil dropped down from above, landing directly in front of him.
“Ah, you are awake! Excellent, you can help with dinner,” he said and held up several unappetizing root vegetables.”
“Do you have to jump around like that?” Oren asked, annoyed at being startled.
“Come, we have much to discuss.” He made his way past Oren into the cavern. The failing light filtered in through the entrance, casting shadows on a low, curving bench carved from the rock wall. There was a fire pit before it, encircled with scorched stones. Near the bench, sticking out of a shoulder-high hole in the wall, was an unlit torch. Its end was wrapped in straw and dry cloth. Khalil set the roots down on the ground and pulled the torch from its natural sconce, then retrieved a small metal box from his pocket and opened it. He struck the flint and steel from the box several times until the tinder cloth was lit, and placed it against the end of the torch, blowing gently. The torch ignited, and the flame cast dim, dancing shadows on the cavern wall.
“Follow me,” said Khalil. They walked to the back of the cavern, which extended back substantially farther than Oren had first guessed. They eventually reached a fork and turned right. Against the back wall of the tunnel were stores of wood and supplies. Khalil collected a small bundle wrapped in black cloth and tossed it to Oren. He barely caught it in the dim torchlight. Khalil then reached under one of the piles of wood, pulled out a black curved stick, and tucked it under his arm. Lastly he scooped up a large pile of dry wood. He stood and walked back, past Oren, toward the front of the cave.
Once they were back at the fire circle, Oren placed the torch back into the natural sconce on the wall. Khalil set down the wood and picked up a small jug from next to the stone shelf. He poured some water from it onto a rag, and handed the rag to Oren.
“You are on root duty,” he said, and pointed to the pile of dirty brown and white roots on the cavern floor. Oren proceeded to clean their dinner as Khalil built the fire.
Once the prep work was finished, Khalil poured more water into a large pot, tossed the roots into it, and secured it over the fire. A trail of smoke floated lazily up toward a crack in the cavern roof. They sat in silence for a time, watching the light flicker on the cavern walls. Khalil had pulled out his pipe, lit it and puffed gently. Oren had so many questions that he couldn’t figure out where to start.
Everything after his last night in New Arcadia seemed like a blur. So much had happened, and none of it seemed real. It wasn’t fair that his life should be so abruptly turned on its head. He thought of Clem and wondered what she was doing at that moment. He remembered their time together in the forest, and regretted not being able to say goodbye, or explain any of this. He missed her fiercely just then, and hoped she didn’t blame him too much for leaving.
Things would never be the same again. He understood that now. Despite all the unbelievable, irrational things that happened, despite all the injustice and all the pain, one thing remained true – he was alive. He hated the idea of being helplessly blown through life like a dandelion seed in the wind. Yes, he was terrified. Yes, he ached deeply for his parents, but he had survived. He was alive, and some part of him recognized that this was a gift. Something inside him changed, and he decided that he would not waste this gift. He would honor the memory of his parents by becoming someone they would have been proud of. He wasn’t sure yet exactly what that was, but he knew what it meant.
“I want you to teach me.”
“Hmm?” Khalil startled – he had been dozing.
“I want to learn how to fight. Like you do.”
Khalil looked at him for a long moment, his eyes measuring the depth of Oren’s resolve. Time stretched out, until finally he answered, “No. You are not ready.”
Oren tried to keep the frustration from his voice, “But I am! I have to do something. I can’t just follow you around forever.”
“You’re right about that. Tell me then, why do you want to learn?” Khalil asked.
Oren took a moment to think about the question. Why did he want to learn? Was it so he could get revenge for his parent’s murder? Was it because he was angry and wanted to fight back? Was it simply to survive? Or was there another reason? Something deeper?
“I want to learn because I am tired of things always being decided for me. Ever since I was young, everything was laid out. Where I would go to school, what vocation I should get into, where I would live.”
“So you want what every teenage boy wants – independence. And you think learning to fight will give you this thing?”
“Yes…I mean no!” Oren shook his head. He wasn’t explaining properly. “It’s more than that. I want to have control over what happens to me. If I’m going to live, I want it to mean something. It’s not just about learning to fight; I want to learn so that I can decide my own path.”
“It’s not always so simple, young Tifl. Your parents, they decided their own paths, and yet they were crushed like insects beneath the Ministry’s boot.”
Oren flushed, “Do not speak of them like that!”
“You see? You are ruled by your emotions. Teaching you now would all but guarantee your death. You are not ready.” Khalil leaned forward and stirred the boiling roots with a long wooden spoon.
Oren breathed deeply and fought to keep his emotions under control. After several minutes, he said, “You are right.”
Khalil looked at him and quizzically raised an eyebrow.
“It still hurts, losing them. It hurts more than I could ever say. I can’t just turn that off, and even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to.” The ache in his chest was crippling, but he held on and fought back the tears.
Khalil nodded, and Oren saw understanding in his eyes.
“In the past week I’ve seen things I never thought possible. I wouldn’t have believed any of it, had someone tried to tell me. Everything I thought was real and true has been torn apart. This world is not the same one I woke up in back in New Arcadia. I want…no, I need to understand it. I need your help.”
“So it is understanding you seek. This, I think, is a better place to begin. Tell me, what is it you want to understand?”
“Why did the Ministry kill my parents?” Oren knew the pain was written across his face, but he was resolute. He had to know why, no matter how badly it hurt.
Khalil took a moment, and puffed on his pipe before asking, “Are you familiar with the term Recreant?”
Oren flashed back to the night he followed Clementine into the woods. The Breaker’s guttural voice echoed in his head.
Your time is up, recreant.
He shook his head.
“It’s the term the Ministry uses to describe one who evades Ascension,” he paused, looking at Oren. “You are surprised? Yes, it does happen. There are those who refuse to bow to the will of the Ministry. Those who choose life over death, or whatever worse fate the Ministry dispenses. The only reason more do not, is that the consequences are severe enough to dissuade them.” He stirred the boiling roots. Oren watched Khalil, and waited for him to continue.
“What happens to them?” he finally asked.
“It’s not what happens to them, it’s what happens to their loved ones. Everyone nearing Ascension finds out one way or another that the Ministry slaughters the family of anyone labeled Recreant.”
A growing fear that he had been ignoring reared its ugly head and materialized. He began to understand. “Noni Magdalene,” he whispered.
Khalil nodded.
“You’re wrong, there has to be another reason. She wouldn’t sacrifice us all so that she could live. She would die for us, I know she would!” He was sure of it, wasn’t he? He found himself wondering how much he really knew about her. She did always have a mysterious air. She was incredibly smart, and seemed to know more about the world than anyone. But she was also one of the warmest, kindest people he had ever known. She had helped raise him, and was nearly as much of a parent as his mother and father had been. She woul
dn’t do anything to put them in danger.
“How much do you know of her?” Khalil asked seriously.
Oren was a swirling mess of emotion. He struggled to ground himself enough to understand the question. “I...She was like a second mother to me.”
Khalil nodded. “Magdalene had another life; a secret life that few knew of. You knew her as a historical archivist, did you not?”
“She worked in the Rosenbach, archiving pre-Aeternum artifacts.” Oren felt detached from his voice, like it was coming from somewhere far away.
“No doubt she spent much time there,” Khalil said, “but that was not her true vocation. Magdalene worked for a secret Ministry group within C-SEC…as a Seeker.”
Oren paused. “A Seeker? What is that?”
“It was her job to investigate and track down Recreants before they kindled. It was highly dangerous work. Ko’jin assassins were often on the hunt for seekers. This is likely why she kept her professional and private lives separate. That, and the Ministry does not tolerate vulnerabilities in its agents.”
“The Ko’jin…you were one of them,” Oren said.
“Yes. The Ko’jin’s primary purpose is to resist the Ministry. Hiding Recreants and helping them to escape New Arcadia is a large part of this. This makes Ko’jin warriors and the Seekers natural enemies.
“Magdalene and I had crossed paths years ago. She was tracking a Recreant by the name of Aldos Tragan. A man we had been working to free from Ascension. Part of the Ko’Jin’s role is to cover the tracks of fleeing Recreants, in the hopes of avoiding the slaughter of their families. This often involved high risk Ministry infiltration. We had succeeded in erasing Aldos from the records, but our methods were discovered by one of the Ministry’s most clever operatives – Magdalene Medeia. She learned Aldos’ last whereabouts and went herself to discover the truth. Instead of Aldos, she found me.
“I could have killed her then, but something stayed my hand. She was different from other operatives, and I was curious, having never actually conversed with a Seeker. It did not take long for me to understand how someone like her could uncover our plan. She was observant, cunning, and brilliant. I explained to her that Aldos was long gone from New Arcadia, and that her chances of finding him were non-existent. She saw the truth in my words and did something then that caused me to question my understanding of our enemy. She walked away.
“Aldos’ family continued on as normal. I know because I checked up on them. They had no clue how close they came to total annihilation. Magdalene could have signed a death warrant for every last one of them, but instead she chose to let Aldos’ secret lie. If anyone found out what she did, or rather what she did not do, it would have meant her death…or worse.
The bucket of water and roots began to boil over. “Ah, dinner is ready.” Khalil snuffed out his pipe and put it away in his pocket. He removed the bucket from the fire and instructed Oren to unwrap the black bundle nearby. Oren picked it up, unwrapped the cloth, and found a stack of dried agaza meat within. Khalil produced two wooden plates, and served Oren a pile of roots on one of them. They smelled like boiled cabbage, only earthier. Oren took a strip of dried meat and passed the rest to Khalil.
Khalil began eating with his hands, and Oren sat, taking it all in. Finding out that Noni Mags had this secret life was somehow both unsettling and thrilling. But how could she work for the Ministry, knowing what they do to people? Knowing they kill innocent families? It didn’t add up. It was outside of her character to be a part of it. She would call it barbaric slaughter…and yet, there was apparently much about her that he did not know.
“So you think she would spare this Aldos’ family, and leave her own to die?” Oren asked. He still wasn’t convinced.
“I do not think she would have made the decision to flee lightly. Two weeks before the night you and I left, she contacted me. She said that she had discovered something vital, and that she needed my help to vanish. I tried to learn more, but she refused to tell me. Unfortunately, I could not help her. Not because she wouldn’t tell me, but because the risk was too great.
“The Ko’jin was nearly destroyed in the past by a Ministry agent posing as a Recreant. I could not risk the entire organization for one person. I told her as much, and that was the last I heard from her.
“That night, I could not sleep. It felt like I had condemned this woman, and her family myself. I decided that I had to do something. I could not risk the Ko’jin, so instead I risked only myself. On the night before her Ascension, I followed her to your house, where I tried to convince you to leave.”
Oren remembered back to that night when things first started going wrong. “You were that guy in the tree,” he realized. That whole day had been completely mad.
“If I could not save her, I could at least try to save some of her family. It was the least I could do, considering what she did for Aldos. The following night I found you, just as the Ministry exacted its retribution upon your family. Had you not been on the rooftop, you likely would have perished with them. As luck would have it, you were on the rooftop, and we were able to escape.” He stopped and took a bite of dried meat. “We did not go unnoticed, however. I can never again show my face in New Arcadia without being hunted. Nor can you…are you going to eat that?”
Oren looked down at his plate. The roots had gone cold. His stomach rumbled, but his head was going a million miles a minute. He began unconsciously munching on the flavorless tuber. Khalil’s story made sense, but he still had trouble imagining his Noni doing something so selfish. There had to be more.
“What else do you know about her?” Oren asked.
“I know that she was watched, closely. The Ministry knows the risk of one of its own escaping with its secrets, and takes extra precautions to ensure that they do not. I do not know if she survived her attempted escape, but I do know that she failed to erase herself from the records, as evidenced by what happened to you.”
Oren took a deep breath and worked it out in his head. Either she was severely mistaken about her ability to cover her tracks, or she learned something that made the risk necessary. He had a hard time thinking of anything that could possibly justify it.
Khalil leaned back against the cavern wall and re-lit his pipe. “How is your side?” he asked.
Oren lifted up his shirt and examined the bandage. “It hurts, but not as bad as it did earlier. Thank you, for fixing me up…again,” Oren said sheepishly.
Khalil nodded. “There is something you should know, about that wound.”
Oren nervously put a hand over it. “Something I should know?”
“Yes. The weapon that caused it is called an arak. The wound it inflicts is unlike that of any normal weapon. The living symbol etched into your skin is called a hasai amon. It is a void parasite that saps a portion of your strength each day. It won’t take enough that you would notice, but after a time, it will reach maturity. Once this happens, it will be too late. The energy will manifest and rip open a gateway to the void, destroying you and anything else in the area.”
Oren dropped his plate. The pain in his side suddenly became far more pronounced. “After a time?” he asked nervously. “How long do I have?”
“It would take months to fully mature. Do not fear, Tifl. Once we reach Masada, there are those who will provide treatment to keep it permanently dormant. As a matter of fact, it is actually quite fortunate that you were branded.”
“Fortunate?” Oren made no effort to hide his annoyance.
“Indeed. Had you not been there to distract those hasai,” he grinned, “I would most likely be dead.”
“Is death some kind of a joke to you?” Oren asked in frustration. He hated how flippant Khalil was on the subject.
“Ah Tifl, one day you will learn that the universe laughs at our self-importance, and so we must laugh along with it, or be left out of the joke completely.”
“What does that even mean?” Oren asked. Khalil puffed on his pipe, ignoring the question. Oren
gave up trying to understand him. “You said before that a Seeker had to track down Recreants before they kindled. What does that mean?”
“Did I say that now? Hmmm. I suppose that I did. I have already given you much to think on tonight. Are you certain there is room in your head for more?” Khalil eyed him intently.
Oren nodded. He was already neck deep in strangeness. Ignoring it wouldn’t make it any less real.
Khalil sighed, “Alright, but no interruptions…and we’ll need to keep this fire burning. Are you able to fetch some more wood from the storage tunnel?”
Oren stood up, gingerly testing his legs. “Yeah, I think so.” He re-lit the torch, then made his way back into the tunnel. When he returned with a bundle of wood, Khalil had stretched out, lounging on the stone bench. He puffed quietly on his pipe. He looked to be in deep contemplation. Oren placed a large, thick piece of wood on the fire and took a seat on the cavern floor across from him.
After a moment, Khalil spoke, “You’ve spent your whole life accepting what you are. You have defined your limitations based on the limitations of those around you. And why wouldn’t you? This is, after all, a natural thing to do. These limitations, are an illusion.” He took another drink and sat up. “The potential for the extraordinary lies within every man, woman, and child of this world. The fruition of this potential, unfortunately, is only experienced by the very few.
Recreance (The Aeternum Chronicles Book 1) Page 6