Soldier at the Door (69 page)

She
was
going to say “cowardly,” but then he started to say it himself, with such ashamed anger tingeing his voice that she immediately changed it to “cautious.” She’d never known him to be
cautious
.

But that wasn’t what she meant, and she secretly still suspected him to be something worse than “cautious.” When he first came to Edge he wanted to know the truth; that was the excuse he gave her for going in to the forest that first time with Karn
a. He wanted to find someone to get answers. He was tired of secrets too.

But not anymore. Every time they talked about the Administr
ators, she could see it in his eyes: a wall went up, and he scurried to hide behind it. There’s twenty-three of them, he’d remind her, and only two of us. She’d never met any of them, and never intended to, but they were
only
older university professors, and slow-witted ones as well. Perrin had one hundred fifty men under his command, and his father had 15,000 and the army was growing. Those were very good odds, indeed!

But they never used that power. Relf Shin was as intimidated and hesitant as his son. But this was where she was different. She would find that truth, reveal those secrets, and show the world what it meant to be brave.

Courage wasn’t killing your enemies; it was looking them in the eyes and proclaiming, “I am here to know you.”

Then she would—

“What are you doing so far over here?”

The voice, barely louder than a whisper, was strong, sharp and—shockingly—
female
. It came from another black cloak right in front of her. Where it appeared from, and from what direction, Mahrree didn’t know. It completely took her breath away and all she could do was stare and tremble.

“I told you to go over—Oh. Wait.
Who are
you?
”

Mahrree could only lick her lips, because no answer came to her completely blank mind.

The cloaked woman abruptly reached up, grabbed Mahrree’s hood, and yanked it down.

“
Oh,
no
.”

Before Mahrree could think, the woman grabbed her arm and led her straight north, deeper into the forest. She took about ten clumsy steps before her frightened mind caught up to her.

I’m going into the forest, deeper into the forest . . . Dear Creator, I’m heading into the forest!

Just as suddenly as she pulled her, the woman stopped, shoved Mahrree to the ground behind a large boulder
away from the view of the tree line, and pushed back her own hood.

Later Mahrree realized that was her opportunity to run away, but the thought didn’t occur her until hours later. All she could do was look up into the woman’s face. She had long graying blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and, judging from her lightly wrinkled pale skin, was at least in her fifties.

“Miss, what in the world do you think you’re doing out here?” Her tone was sharp and cutting, like a dagger.

“I . . . I . . . don’t really know myself.”

At that moment, Mahrree’s answer was honest.

“What, you
simply thought you’d take a late night stroll along the most dangerous piece of land in the world?”

“I . . .
I . . . ,” Mahrree stammered stupidly. Then it came to her. “I got lost trying to find my aunt’s house.”

As soon as the words came out, they sounded dumb.

And they sounded dumb to the middle-aged woman, too. “Try again, Miss.”

It came back to Mahrree, everything. She’d told herself she’d find someone, and now she did! Here she was, dressed like the night, strong, determined, and obviously familiar with the forest—this was it!

“I’m tired of all the secrets! I want to know the truth!” Mahrree declared, getting to her feet to face the woman who was only slightly taller than her. She said it with conviction, with strength, and with a tone that said she wasn’t going to leave until she knew it all.

But that’s not what the older woman with the ponytail heard.

“No, you don’t,” she said dismissively. “Go home, dear. Quickly now.” She turned and headed deeper into the woods.

Insulted, Mahrree ran up to the woman, grabbed her arm, and spun her around.

“Yes! Yes, I do! I took tremendous risks to come here tonight. I could tell something was going on in the forest, and I’ve lived here my entire life always being afraid and suspicious, but also knowing that it
never added up!
Something else is going on. I need to know what it is, and you can tell me. So tell me!”

The woman patted her on the arm. “Lovely speech, my dear.
Truly. From the heart, I can tell. But you
really
don’t want to know. You
think
you do, but what you want to hear is something scandalous to share with your little friends, or something secretive that you think will give you power, or something shocking you can expose for a large amount of gold nuggets. But you don’t
really
want to know. No one does, although they think they do. They aren’t ready for it, because the truth can change everything we’re sure we already know.”

“I’m not like that!” Mahrree insisted, furious with the woman’s patronizing manner. “I don’t want gold
or power or anything else—I only want to
know
. Why the raids? What do you want? Why so much fear and terror?”

“
I
don’t bring terror,” the woman said earnestly. “All
I
do is save lives, but you wouldn’t understand that. Maybe someday, when you have enough trust in the Creator.”

Mahrree was growing impatient. “I believe in the Creator! I read The Writings! What do you mean, maybe someday?!”

“When you can answer this question, my dear,” she patted Mahrree on the shoulder as if she was three years old. “What color is the sky?”

Mahrree automatically looked up to take the easiest test in the world. “Black with white dots, two half spheres of the moons, and patches of dark gray clouds.”

The woman stepped closer and peered at Mahrree.

“Very good,” she whispered. “Very good, indeed. I may have been wrong about you.”

“You were,” Mahrree declared. “Now tell me!”

The older woman gave her a genuine smile. “You’re simply not ready, Miss. The truth will change all you know, and you don’t want that.”

“I do! That’s the whole reason I’m here.”

“All right,” the woman said slowly. “I can not only
tell
you the truth, but I can
show
it to you. But not here. You’d have to come with me—”

“I’m ready!”

“—and never come back.”

Mahrree stopped and blinked. “What do you mean,
never come back
?!”

“There’s no going back from the truth, Miss. Once you know it,
you have to live it. You can’t know the truth and live a lie. It will drive you to despair or insanity. So ultimately, it’d kill you,” she said simply. “You can’t live here and know it all. Are you ready to make that commitment? Ready to leave it all, for all the answers you’ve ever wanted?”

Mahrree’s mouth went completely dry at the unthinkable offer.
This
was the real test. Not the color of the sky, but the willingness of her heart.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why does it have to be that way?”

“Nothing costs more than the truth, my dear. It demands everything. And I have a feeling you’re not ready to give it all. Look at you—you’re quite young still, and probably have so much here you shouldn’t leave. Do you have a husband?”

Mahrree nodded, unable to speak, the thought of leaving Perrin tying her tongue.

“A child?”

“Two,” Mahrree’s voice cracked.

“Two? That’s becoming unusual. How old are your children?”

“Daughter’s two, son’s one,” she whispered, imagining for just the shortest of agonizing moments leaving their sweet little faces.

The woman’s face froze in place. “
Two and one?
”

Mahrree nodded, tears filling her eyes. The truth at any cost—

Who did she think she was kidding? The cost was far too high. She’d thought she could find out the truth to help Perrin, to resolve these mysteries, to put an end to all of it—

No. That was just another lie she told herself.

The woman was right. She wanted power, and she was doing this for herself, to prove something to the world. It was her haughtiness that sent her there, her growing frustration with the Administrators to whom this school teacher thought she should teach a lesson. Deny her more children? Send her only form letters? Change the way children learned about the world? Let the Guarders become so powerful that they take her husband away, again and again? She’d show them she knew a thing or two! She’d expose everything—whatever it was—and disgrace and shame them!

But she couldn’t.

When faced with the actuality of doing it, of doing
anything
courageous, she couldn’t do it. Even if she didn’t have a husband and children, Mahrree knew she’d never follow this woman one step further into the forest.

She always thought herself to be brave, especially when she stood on the platform in the amphitheater loudly proclaiming her opinions for all the world to hear, but deep down she knew “the world” didn’t hear her. Only a few hundred, occasionally a few tho
usand, in the insignificant village of Edge ever heard her, and even then none of them took her seriously. She knew that, and that was the only reason she dared say anything. Before she was married she frequently walked the edges of the forest, but nothing bad ever happened on the edges. It wasn’t nearly as daring as it appeared.

And neither—Mahrree realized with humbling force as she stood a mere thirty paces in—was she.

The woman stepped closer to her and took her arm. Initially Mahrree was alarmed, but the touch was kind.

“Someday
will
come for you,” the woman promised. “There’ll be a day when you’ll be ready to leave it all behind and embrace the truth. But not for many years still, I suspect. Until then, think of this night never again. Should your mind ever find itself surprised by this memory, tell yourself it was just a vivid dream, for that’s all it really is. You can practice looking at the world in different ways, preparing your mind to realize you know really nothing at all, looking at the sky and realizing it changes minute by second, but until that
someday
comes, nothing will ever quite make sense. That’s all right,” she said, almost genially.

Mahrree
only gaped at her.

“But when that day
does
come,” she continued with a sharper edge and firming her grip on Mahrree’s arm, “everything will hit you with such finality and power you’ll never again be able to forget it or deny it. You’ll find the truth and
run to it
. But
not
tonight. Now, you need to get back to that empty field below us, and run home to your husband and babies before they miss you.”

No—

No, she couldn’t let it end
like this
, with a lecture in the trees as if she were some thirteen-year-old child with a rebellious streak!

She needed something—some hint or clue or number to plug i
nto Perrin’s equation. Just a something more than what she knew this morning, and she wasn’t going to let this woman leave without getting it.

One last stupid flash of defiance gripped Mahrree, and the most
irrational part of her mind screamed,
Look—you’re standing in the forest against all laws and logic speaking to a real Guarder! No one’s done this before, so DO SOMETHING!

By the time all that audacity reached her mouth, though, it had diminished to a whimper. “But I’ve come
so far
.”

“Not as far as you think, dear. Only about twenty paces.” The patronizing tone was back, along with a firm pat on the cheek that felt more like a mild slap.

That did it.

The very last of Mahrree’s impudence boiled up and filled her with dangerous courage. “
I have!
You have no idea who I am, or what—”

“Oh, yes
I do!
” the woman interrupted her sharply. “I know you have a very ill-named dog. It
never
barks. Now, GO HOME, Mrs. Shin!”

Mahrree couldn’t even breathe as she watched the woman march hastily away and be swallowed up by the forest, leaving her completely alone in the trees with one horrible thought.

She knew a little bit more, got her one truth, and revealed a secret: she, her children, and even her barkless dog, were known to the Guarders.

Chapter 23 ~ “And whose side are
you
on, anyway, Quiet Man?!”

I
t was late at night when the man in the black jacket strode through the dark forest, past the steaming vents, around a sulfurous cavern, out of the reach of a spray of hot water, and over a swell of land that seemed to swell a little more each year. He walked alone and knew exactly where he was going. He picked up his pace once he was past the more hazardous terrain and started to jog eastward, weaving in and out of thickets and through meadows.

He shouldn’t have to be here, he thought bitterly. Something had gone very wrong for him to be taking such a risk again. The st
ories he had to come up with . . .

There was too much moons’ light. That was one of the pro
blems. And the forest was too quiet. Usually it was rumbling and gurgling louder, but the world went in cycles like the seasons, and it was a bad time for the forest to be napping. A little bit of ground moaning as cover would’ve been most welcome right now.

That’s when he saw him, where he shouldn’t be, cowering like a distracted porcupine.

“Ah, no,” the man in the black jacket whispered, and crept over to the large rocks where the man in a black cloak was clinging to the shadows and looking in the wrong direction.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the man in the black jacket whispered in his ear.

There are many rules of the forest, and the most important is always the one neglected at the moment. And at that moment, the rule of “Never startle a preoccupied porcupine” shot up to the top of the list.

The porcupine-in-a-cloak nearly jumped out of it in surprise, swung blindly behind him, and smacked the face of the man in the black jacket. Then he took off running directionless, probably spooked because the boulder he’d been hiding behind developed a mouth and a sudden need to communicate its opinion.

But the smack wasn’t hard enough to faze the black jacket man.

“No!” he whispered urgently, and was immediately in pursuit. “Go left! Go left!” he hissed, but the man in the cloak veered right instead.

The second rule of the forest always seems to be, whenever someone’s being chased, he’ll always run towards the worst possible obstacle.

The porcupine man, for someone who had never been in the forest before, was following the rules perfectly.

“Naturally—the wrong way,” the jacketed man grumbled as he sprinted to catch up to him. “What more can go wrong tonight?”

The cloaked porcupine man realized, in his maddened dash, that the trees and shrubs he was dodging abruptly ended. Fortunately he still had enough wits about to recognize he likely should as well.

He skidded to a stop right before the deep crevice in front of him, but his momentum still swayed his body towards the gap.

The man in the jacket reached him just in time to yank him back, throwing him into the relative safety of a prickly bush.

“That was close! So what do you think you’re do—”

The cloaked porcupine didn’t even thank his rescuer, but was off again in a scrambling dash. Th
e cloth of his covering snagged on the thorny bushes and tripped him up, but he kept running without a plan or a clue.

The jacketed man was right behind him. “You have no idea where you’re going, do you?” he tried to yell in a hush. “Think about it—this is NOT a great place to run blindly in, now is it?!” and he leaped on top of him, knocking him to the ground in front of several boulders. “Now if you’ll just—”

“No! Get off me!”

“I can’t do that,” the jacketed man told him, pushing a knee into his back and twisting one of his arms behind him. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“Only saving you the bother of doing it!” his caught porcupine gasped, trying to free his arm. “That’s all you do out here, isn’t it?”

“Not me, my friend. That’s not what I do.” The man in the jac
ket—larger and stronger—twisted the cloak around the porcupine to avoid getting smacked again. Then with a grunt he flipped him over onto his back.

The porcupine man, rendered helpless on the dirt, noticed the man’s open jacket and the silver buttons concealed on the inside. He glanced down at his captor’s trousers, then up at his face dimly lit by the moons.

“Wait a minute,” his voice thick with anger, “You . . . YOU! How could you?!” While his arms were bound, his legs weren’t. He sharply raised his knee to knock his captor off of him.

“Be quiet!” the man in the black jacket hissed as he tumbled off, but it was too late.

His hostage had already wriggled free and was on his knees, his hands out ready to strangle him.

“I told you to
stop
him, not
kill
him, Zenos!”

Shem was prepared. He quickly got to his feet, and in a flash Dormin, far less practiced, found his arm twisted and held behind his back again. Then he felt the cold steel of a long
knife held against his throat, the flat of the blade pressed on his flesh.

“Dormin, I’m so sorry. It
was
me that killed Sonoforen, but there was no other choice. He was standing in front of the Shins’ door, his long knife out, and his hand on the door handle. I had only seconds to act. I didn’t want to do it, I promise you. I’ve never taken a life before, and that night I took two.”

Dormin panted anxiously as Shem Zenos held him immobile. “Are you taking a third tonight, then?”

“I’m praying not to, but then again, the night’s only begun.”

“Why are you out here?”

“I was about to ask you that,” Shem said. “You’re supposed to be long gone! This forest is no place for you, last son of King Oren.”

“There’ve been complications.” Dormin gasped and swallowed against the cold blade on his throat. “Let me go, will you?”

“Only after you promise you’re not going to avenge your brother’s death.”

Dormin sighed, almost in embarrassment. “I’m not even
armed
, Zenos.”

“That’s right, he’s not!” a woman’s voice snapped. She bounded out of a clump of trees, shaking her head in dismay. Her long blonde
and gray streaked hair, pulled into a serviceable ponytail, whipped angrily but she moved as silently as the moons. “Dormin, how in the world did you get here?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Yung,” he whispered. “I got disoriented.”

“Yes, obviously!” she whispered back. “You’re almost as aimless as my husband. We’ll have to find him next. Zenos, let go of him already!”

Shem shrugged apologetically, sheathed his knife and released
Dormin’s arm. Dormin scampered away from him and glowered.

“What you boys get up to in the forests here, I just don’t know,” Mrs. Yung fumed. “This entire night is going completely wrong!”

“Sorry, Mrs. Yung,” Shem said, withering under her glare which didn’t even need full light to be fully effective. “We just, uh . . . needed to talk things through.”

Dormin folded his arms.

“Well, I hope it’s resolved because we have far greater problems right now! Zenos, the upper northeastern route along the ridge has been compromised. We had to stop at the ravine because of an emergency, but we’re ready to move again. But we don’t know where the last four are. We split up to confuse them, and confused Dormin instead, I see.” All she had to do was put her hands on her hips and face him.

Now it was
Dormin’s turn to shrug contritely, and Shem’s shoulders sagged in additional remorse, even though he hadn’t been the cause of any of those problems.

Mrs. Yung was used to that. Rector’s wives were supposed to be their husbands’ equals in acting as the Creator’s hands to provide heartfelt concern and loving guidance.

But Mrs. Yung had an additional trait which manifested itself in opportune moments. With a determinedly pointed finger, a quick tongue, and a sharp kick to one’s conscious, no one could reduce a full-grown man to shamed penitence quicker than Mrs. Yung. When her ire was up, even innocent people who had never met her before felt the need to apologize repeatedly. Her ability to reduce any ego into scrambled egg with simply a well-honed glare was why she was chosen to keep order in the forests. Her husband tagged along at this point, after his work was done, just for the entertainment.

Satisfied that the boys were no longer squabbling, she nodded
once in acknowledgement of their apologies. “Now, there’s yet another wrinkle tonight, and Shem, you have to fix that one as well.”

Shem briefly rolled his eyes. “Oh, what is it now!?”

“A
friend
of yours has found herself on the wrong side of the trees. Now, I suggest you find her lost dog, then—”

“Wait a minute,” Shem grabbed Mrs. Yung’s arm. “Mahrree?!”

“What’s a marr-ee?” Dormin asked.

“A most determined, naïve, and dangerous woman, that’s what!” Mrs. Yung declared. “She wanted to know the truth, or so she claims, and I accidentally grabbed her thinking she was you, Dormin!”

“Where’s she now?” Shem asked, alarmed.

“Likely at the edge of the forest, sobbing because I intimidated her for her own good. She and her family need to stay out of here. It’s not their time yet. Hifadhi’s said that a few times.”

Still Zenos looked down in the direction Mrs. Yung had come running from.

She grabbed his jaw and turned his face abruptly to look at her.

“Shem, focus here! First priority is to find and misdirect the last four. Then you can see about
your friend
. And Shem,” her glare turned so severe that only a man as strong as Shem could have withstood it, and even then his knees began to buckle, “since when do
you
call an older married woman by her first name?”

Zenos swallowed. “Didn’t want to reveal her identity in front of Dormin. The less he knows, the better.”

“Yes,
of course
,” Mrs. Yung said slowly, not at all convinced by his explanation as she released his face. But fortunately for the young corporal there were more important matters at hand and no time for a lecture. “I’ve secured Dormin, so you get out there and do your duty tonight, whatever that means. Understand?”

“Yes, Mrs. Yung,” Zenos said obediently. No one would dare disobey that tone of voice. “
You
just get
him
out of here!”

“That’s always been the plan, Shem, but this past week—it’s been unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. How I’m going to e
xplain
any
of this to my brother Hew, I—” She stopped short and pointed to a clearing beyond them.

Four figures in black were jogging quietly towards their general direction, weaving through the underbrush and dodging pine trees.

Without another word, Mrs. Yung jabbed Shem. He nodded, the long knife still in his hands, and headed straight towards them, noiseless hurtling shrubs in his way. Mrs. Yung grabbed Dormin’s arm and pulled him back towards the boulders.

“What’s he doing?” Dormin whispered.

“
Saving your life,
Dormin. When I say three, head towards the stand of pines. One . . .
three!
”

Dormin followed her up to the trees several paces away. He slipped into the middle of them, learning earlier that night that co
mplaining about their poking needles wouldn’t earn him any sympathy since Mrs. Yung was already quite scratched up herself.

“Hold still and you’ll become the shadows,” Mrs. Yung breathed. “That’s the best way to see what’s happening.”

Dormin nodded, but felt a sharp jab from Mrs. Yung. “I said
hold still
. Talk in breaths.”

“Sorry,” he breathed. He kept his shoulders from shrugging a
nother apology, but his eyes widened with dismay that the gentle, kind woman who had been acting as his mother for more than a year had become as pointed and threatening as the blade she wore concealed under her cloak. With considerable dread, he fretted that maybe that his great grandmother, the originator of the killing squads, was distantly related to Mrs. Yung.

His first night in the trees was definitely different than what he was used to.

Dormin squinted between the boughs to see where Zenos had jogged off to. A moment later he appeared in the moons’ light directly in front of the four men. They stopped in surprise and blinked, as if unsure that the man was really in front of them.

“Who are you?!” one of the men asked, not concerned about keeping his voice low.

Zenos answered them nothing, but stood motionless.

“
Wait a minute
,” one of the four said slowly. He took a few steps closer. “Look at his trousers. Hey, I know who you are! What are you do—”

That’s all he got out.

Shem lunged unexpectedly, thrusting his knife into the man’s heart. His three companions immediately reacted by pulling their jagged daggers, but the man in the black jacket took off running.