by Janean Worth
Kara sat close to him as they shared their meal, and for once, their silence seemed to be companionable. Gone was the tension that had existed between them back at the sanctuary, and Mathew was glad for its absence. Although Kara seemed to have lost some of her confidence and faith, she was mostly the same Kara who had saved his life in the Old Forest. His only true friend. He smiled at the idea of having a good and true friend like Kara, then took a large bite of his apple, chewing thoughtfully as he took stock of their surroundings.
The city was eerily quiet, and Mathew thought that Otto must have finished destroying the secret maze. The hush surrounding them was broken only by a faint whispering wind hissing through the broken windows of the skyscraper crouched above them and the noisy chewing of the horses as they enjoyed their own lunch of apples and wild carrots.
“These are surprisingly good,” Kara said, gesturing to the avocado that she was eating, a fruit that they hadn’t known existed until they’d visited the conservatory with Otto. There had been no avocados in GateWide, and the first they’d ever seen of them had been when they’d arrived at the conservatory. She’d peeled back the leathery outer skin of the avocado and was nibbling at the soft inner green flesh of the fruit.
Mathew wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like them.”
“I do. They keep me full for a long time and Otto said that they’re good for me. I brought a lot of them for our journey. As many as Otto said they could spare, which was quite a few, since the others don’t seem to enjoy them, either.”
Mathew looked at her and was struck by how good she looked, even with a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Perhaps the avocados really were doing her some good. Kara had filled out a lot in the previous few weeks and she was no longer the emaciated, starving girl that he’d met in the Old Forest. Her skin no longer bore a sickly pallor and she was no longer so slender that her bones jutted from her skin.
Mathew shrugged. “I brought a lot of apples, wild carrots, and wild onions.”
“Onions? I hope it’s safe enough on the Narrow Road for a fire, because I only like those if they’re cooked,” Kara said, wrinkling her nose. And then, to his surprise, she laughed. “Remember when we would both have been glad of anything to eat, regardless of whether we liked the taste or not? And now we have enough food that we can eat only what we like.”
Mathew smiled again. It was true. They could afford to be picky if they wanted. They had enough food. He hoped that would remain true on their journey to the Narrow Gate.
“Perhaps you’d care to share, then, since you have so much?” said a deep, unfamiliar voice.
Mathew choked on his apple as he shot to his feet, mentally cursing himself. He’d let his guard down and someone had found them. Even worse, by letting down his guard, he’d put Kara in danger.
Kara was on her feet, too, standing beside him in front of the automobile, back straight, posture alert, her head scanning back and forth looking for the source of the voice.
Mathew was doing the same, but he could find nothing. There was no one on the abandoned street with them.
A deep chuckle sounded, and Mathew glanced up, able to finally locate the source of the sound. There, hanging out of a broken window above them, was an Enforcer.
Mathew could see the Enforcer insignia upon the left side of his dirty uniform quite clearly. And, with equal clarity, he could also see the gun pointed directly at Kara’s head.
Chapter Eight
The slight wind ruffled through her long, unkempt hair, blowing it into her eyes as Kara stared up at the Enforcer above them. She dared not move to brush the hair away, afraid that the man would take it as an act of aggression and use the gun that he had pointed at her in defense.
For several long seconds, no one said a word, then to her surprise, the Enforcer pulled the gun back inside the window and stood from his concealing crouch, stowing the gun in the black, belted holster at the hip of his uniform.
“I mean you no harm,” he said, holding his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender. “Can you say the same?”
Kara didn’t answer. This had to be another Enforcer trick. Since she’d become a Stray, she hadn’t met a single Enforcer who did not mean her harm. Other than Truchen, of course. But he’d been the exception so far. All of the other Enforcers definitely meant her harm, in the form of capture and return to the Sovereign.
Mathew, who always seemed to have less control of his tongue than she did, spoke up, voicing her thoughts almost exactly.
“I don’t believe you,” he said boldly.
The Enforcer shrugged. “I don’t blame you. I know that the Sovereign has Enforcers out in droves searching for you, so why would you think that I would have any other purpose except to capture you? But, his plans for you when they capture you aren’t anything that I want to talk about. Nothing pleasant, that’s for sure.”
“You know what the Sovereign plans for us if we are captured?” Mathew asked.
Kara winced at the question. Not only did it seem that they were eager for answers that only the Enforcer could provide, but she didn’t really want to know his answers if he had them. The Sovereign’s plans no doubt included lots of pain and punishment for what they’d done. And, after she’d held him down and tied his hands in order to get away with the Strays, she was pretty sure that he would have no trouble coming up with a very gruesome punishment just for her. She really didn’t want to know what it was.
“Yes, I know that and a whole lot more. That’s part of the reason that I deserted the Enforcers and left GateWide, though not all of it. There are other things, too. Such as his plans for a settlement that he’s been keeping a secret, and also his new laws for the citizens of GateWide. Things have gotten a whole lot worse there since you took all of the Strays and tracken. The Sovereign needed replacements for all of those slaves you took with you. And he’s gotten them in some pretty unexpected places. Sure wasn’t nothing I ever expected, anyways.”
The Enforcer stepped nearer to the window and bent over to place his hands on the sill and lean out, so that he could look down at them as he talked. The man’s face was covered almost entirely by a scruffy beard, but his eyes seemed oddly trustworthy to be peering out of an Enforcer’s face.
“I also have a message for you, from the Sovereign himself. And I’ll tell it to you if you’ll share some of that food. I haven’t eaten in two days. My name’s Heddert, by the way. And I already know who the both of you are, since, like I said, the Sovereign has so many Enforcers looking for you two.”
Kara threw a glance at Mathew, wondering if they could trust what the Enforcer had said, or what he was prepared to tell them. She wanted to hear more about this secret settlement. Although that could be a lie just to throw them off balance and allow him to get close.
Kara glanced around the street. As far as she could tell, it was still deserted. They seemed to be alone with the Enforcer.
“I don’t have anyone else with me, if that’s what you’re looking for, Kara.” Heddert told her with another chuckle, still staring down at them from his vantage point. “But, I ’spose you didn’t get his far by not staying on your guard. Kinda surprised that I was able to sneak up on the two of you so easy, really. I expected a little more out of you, to tell the truth, especially since you got out of GateWide not once but twice, and we both know those gates are there as much to keep people in as to keep bad things out.”
Kara glanced at Mathew again, but he only gave a slight shrug as if to say that he didn’t know what to do with the man, either.
“Why don’t you toss any weapons that you have down to the street?” Kara said. “Then, come out of the building.”
Heddert nodded and then proceeded to disarm himself. Kara was surprised at how long it took and just how well‑armed the man seemed to be. First, he unloaded his gun and tossed it down onto the street beside the dilapidated automobile, then he threw down three knives that he removed from various spots on his person. The knives were followed by anothe
r, smaller gun, and then an Enforcer’s blunt‑ended wooden baton flew out of the window and clattered loudly against the crumbling concrete. When he was done, he held his hands out again, as if to show her that he had no more weapons.
“What about Old Tech?” Mathew asked. “Do you have any?”
“Yes,” Heddert replied. “But I’m not going to throw that out of the window. Too easy to damage it, and though there seems to be a lot of Old Tech in this city for anyone who looks, not a whole lot of it works anymore. So, I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”
“Put it on the edge of the window where we can see it, then,” Kara told him. She felt a frisson of disgust skitter up her spine as the Enforcer put one of the tracken control devices onto the window ledge, and then added two Old Tech devices that she’d never seen before.
“I’m coming down now,” the man said as he disappeared from the window.
Silent minutes passed, and Kara began to regret her decision to talk to the Enforcer. As a Stray, she knew that Enforcers were not to be trusted. That was one of the first things a Stray learned. Not to trust an Enforcer. How could she even consider that there would be any truth in anything that he told them?
When Heddert finally appeared in the crumbling opening of the skyscraper that used to function as a doorway, Kara was fingering the knife in her pocket, hoping that she would not be called upon to defend herself. She glanced toward the guns that the man had thrown down, and then at Mathew.
He was watching her, and she gestured toward the weapons with her head. He nodded and went to pick up the guns.
“Hey, now, I’m hoping you’ll give those back when I go on my way. I need them to protect myself. The other Enforcers have been told to shoot me on sight, just like they’ve been told to kill all of the other deserters who’ve left.”
“Like my father?” Mathew asked. “And Kara’s?”
Heddert did not seem surprised at the mention of these two deserters, or by the fact that Mathew knew that his father was alive and not dead as they’d told him. Heddert nodded. “Just like them.”
“Why hasn’t the Sovereign used your signal to find you?” Kara asked.
“You mean the thing that used to be here?” Heddert asked, craning his neck to the side and using one hand to pull out the collar of his uniform jacket so that she could see the bloody, mangled wound at the base of his skull. “I cut out the Old Tech there, and left it back in GateWide for the other Enforcers to find. He’ll not be finding me that way. That was one favor that Gabert did me. If not for him, I wouldn’t have known about those things, or the signals, or how the Sovereign knows some things that he shouldn’t be knowing. It was a real beast to find the thing and get it out, though. I spent hours poking myself everywhere. Sure hope Gabert made it out of the Mire since he did me such a good turn. Sure do.”
“Truchen went to find him,” Mathew said.
When Kara threw him a look, he shrugged. “What does it matter if he knows? He can see that Truchen isn’t with us.”
Kara frowned at him. Mathew was giving up too much information. He had just revealed to Heddert that they were alone there. The only thing that Heddert didn’t know yet was that they had no tracken with them. She hoped that Mathew wouldn’t volunteer that information, too.
“So, what message does the Sovereign have for us, and why would you give it to us if you’re not with his Enforcers anymore?” Kara asked.
“Well, I know it because he made all of us Enforcers memorize it right after you left GateWide and he began sending patrol after patrol after patrol out to find you. And, I’m gonna tell it to you because I think you should know. What he’s got planned just ain’t right. And it’s just plain dangerous, too. And lots of people are gonna die if he does it. Lots of innocent people who got no beef with you or the Sovereign and who don’t even really know who he is. But they’re still gonna die.”
A chill went down Kara’s spine that had nothing to do with the proximity of the Enforcer, and everything to do with the Sovereign. She could not be responsible for any more deaths. She just could not bear it if more people died because she was free.
“Tell us . . .” she whispered past the lump in her throat, feeling sick to her stomach.
Chapter Nine
Deep beneath the ruined and abandoned city lay a labyrinth of tubular tunnels that stretched for miles in several directions. The tunnels met underground at one central location, and above this bisection point arose a white, many‑columned building that sat squarely in the middle of a small parklike area. The majority of the tunnels, the building above, and the surrounding area were all strangely bereft of the deterioration and neglect that marked the rest of the city. It was obvious that much work and attention had gone into keeping these areas in good repair. It was also obvious that it would have taken a small army to keep this large area in such condition. An army, or a horde of creatures directed by an intelligent being.
The Custodian—for that was how he thought of himself, having long since forgotten his own name—looked around the area he was currently occupying, a large open area that dropped off at a sharp‑edged platform, bordering the iron rails that ran along the tunnels below the city. The area was tiled with tiny red, orange, white, and blue tiles that his horde had polished to a nice shine before his visit to this place—even in the deeply shadowed gloom he could see their sheen. His large, wooden chair, which looked more like the kingly thrones he had glimpsed in one of his precious books, sat off to the side of the open area so that he could view both the tunnel and the entrance to the room, which descended from the white building above by way of several sets of metal stairs. To the side of the enormous room, his horde had positioned his four‑posted bed, which they had laboriously carried down the tunnel for him on their sturdy backs.
The bed stood there, awaiting his rest, bed hangings draped over the top and sides to prevent any insects or other pests from disturbing his sleep when he chose to nap. Despite the care of his army, the curtained hangings on the bed were becoming a bit shabby with wear, and as of yet, his little horde of thieves had been unable to find anything suitable to replace them with in the abandoned city above. The Custodian was unsurprised by this, but he had directed them to keep looking despite the fact that he did not think that they would be able to find any suitable cloth that had escaped the ravages of time. It had been so very many, many years since The Fall.
Next to his bed was his most precious resource: his collection of books, all of which had been collected for him by his horde. He had many trunks and boxes and satchels that were filled with his most precious books. Some of the other books, not quite as precious as these, he had left to the care of his horde in the other areas that he often used as his home among the tunnels.
From his books, he had learned so many things. For instance, the books had taught him that the place that tunneled below the city had been called a “subway” in the Time Before, and that they had been used for transportation of the massive amount of people who used to dwell in the city above. This indeed made much sense to the Custodian, because his horde had shown him tubular‑shaped conveyances that littered some parts of the tunnels. Here, below the white building, which had seemed to act as a central location for the subway, there were three such conveyances nearby.
From his books he had also learned how to better his situation. It had taken years to achieve, but he had become more master than slave to the horde of creatures who kept him as their Custodian. Using the knowledge he found in books, and a few Old Tech devices that the creatures themselves had collected for him, he had turned the tables on the vicious little beasts. At that point, it was he who made the rules and called the shots. If he were still the young man that he used to be when they’d first captured him, he might have attempted escape once he had mastered his control of them, but he was old and did not have the strength to flee any longer. And, since he had mastered his control of them, they took very, very good care of him.
The knowledge in his preci
ous books had also afforded him a cure for the terrible disease that he’d suffered with when he’d first been captured by the beasts. The oozing sores that had covered his body had long since been healed by applying a poultice of specific herbs over the course of many months. The Custodian thought it ironic that this disease, which had so pained him then, was what had prevented the creatures from devouring him when they’d first found him, lying in a febrile state near the edge of the abandoned city. The creatures did not eat tainted, diseased meat, and so they’d kept him as a toy to play with instead.
The Custodian clapped his aged hands and looked into the darkness for the members of the horde that had been chosen to be his companions and guards for the day. The sound echoed eerily inside the underground space, and moments later, he heard the scurrying patter of their feet and the scrabble of their long claws against the shiny tile as they neared his chair. He had difficulty picking out their faces in the dark as he grew older and increasingly frail. Even though his eyesight had long ago adjusted to the blackness of the subway, his night vision had failed him long ago and did not help him anymore. It had been many months since he had visited the surface to sit in the sun. This was largely because he was growing ever feebler with age, but also in some part because this activity agitated the horde because they themselves could not venture into the sun’s rays. That is, they hadn’t been able to until he had recently taught them how to outfit themselves with enclosing coverings and persuaded a few of them to enter the sunlight as an example to the others, proving that the sun could no longer hurt them if they were covered.
“Yessss, massster?” one of his guards asked, its words slurred due to the massive teeth jutting from its mouth.
Master! The title sounded so good coming from those twisted lips. Master, when once he had been as a slave to them.