Aster Wood and the Book of Leveling (Volume 2) (30 page)

When Jade and I met, we hadn’t gotten along very well. In fact, every day since the first we seemed to have some argument or another. But I had come to rely on her more than I had ever relied on anyone before. She was my guide, knowing the history of the planets we traversed together, driving our mission to level the Fold, whether she knew it or not. She was my sister, young and helpless, in need of protection,
my
protection above any other. This was remarkable to me when I, just a sick kid from Earth, had never been able to protect myself or any other before. She was my friend. My friend who, the last time I saw her, stood over a corpse after carving my name into its skull, laughing hysterically at the sickening end she was planning for me.
 

And now, she was gone.

And I was lost.
 

I quickly shoved away the image of her face, distorted by the control of the Corentin, replacing it forcibly with that of my mother again. But nothing I could do could ever remove it completely from my thoughts, the scene that had awaited me after our escape from the Fire Mountains. On that day we should have been happy, victorious, united together with the Book of Leveling, our key to setting everything right. With us should have been Almara, Jade’s father, in tow. But Almara was dead, Jade split open by his departure, and all I was left with was the scene of her before those corpses, burned into the back of my head, forever visible like a film that lay over my eyes.
 

So, with nowhere to be and no one to urge me on, I walked. Stonemore lay somewhere up ahead, though where, exactly, I wasn’t sure. Almara had once pointed towards the walled city, and it was in that direction I now headed. It mattered little to me, most days, whether I was going the right way or not.
 

When I had descended from the peak of the Fire Mountains, I had crawled through the great, grassy valley beneath them in a haze of misery. Over several days, I gradually became able to care for myself again. My appetite came back, and occasionally I would be troubled to forage for a meal. I had once helped my friend Erod, a giantish man from the village of the Solitaries, skin a whole deer and prepare it for cooking, but I didn’t know the first thing about hunting. Luckily, the lands of Aeso were still quite healthy, especially compared to Earth, and I was able to find enough food to keep me alive. First, in the grassy plains that stretched out in low, rolling hills, the occasional fruit tree would fill my pack and keep me fed for several days. Then, as the edges of the forest began to cover my path, mushrooms and berries filled in the void. Once, a chipmunk the size of my hand ran right up to me as I sat, motionless. For a quick moment I considered trying to catch him, but before I could even move my hand in his direction, he realized his mistake and bolted away. It was just as well. An animal so tiny would have given me little sustenance, and I didn’t know how to make a fire, anyways.
 

But I couldn’t ignore the gnawing pain in my gut forever. Soon, one way or another, I would need to find food, and a lot of it. My time alone in the wilds of Aeso was coming to a close, and I knew it. But I hung on, nibbling the berries and fungi for as long as I could, not quite ready to rejoin the living world just yet.
 

It was the smell of meat that caught my attention one evening after sunset. Not the raw, sweet smell of an animal recently caught, but the savory, thick scent of someone cooking, and nearby. It sent me to my feet before I even realized what I was doing, and soon I was tiptoeing through the underbrush, trying to follow the smell and hoping desperately that its owner had enough to share.

The forest around me was unusually quiet. Darkness hadn’t completely fallen yet, and usually around this time I would still hear the skittering of birds up high in the trees, settling in for the night. But nothing stirred. Not a squirrel. Not a lizard. Not a single cricket.
 

The smell was beginning to overwhelm me, and I had to forcibly hold myself back from crashing around in my search for its source. Then, up ahead, a faint, flickering light caught my attention. I crouched low, peering through the pine needles, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was tending to that fire. But the tiny orange flames were the only movement I saw as the night settled around me in earnest. I took several cautious steps forward, stopping again, waiting.

Nobody came. I could see now that a fire had been built, and atop it sat a small cook pot, the source of the tantalizing aroma that had led me here. Finally, after waiting for a few minutes to see if anyone would materialize, my stomach gave an unhappy twinge, and I was forced out into the clearing despite my concern.
 

I went straight for the pot. I couldn’t stop myself. Grabbing it by the handle, I removed it from the flame. I lifted the lid and saw a glorious concoction of meat, potatoes and vegetables swimming in a pool of gravy. Without thinking, without caution, I grabbed a roughly cast spoon set on the ground next to the fire and took a huge bite.
 

Pain. Searing pain as the boiling gravy met my tongue. I spat it out, groaning in misery and anger. How stupid I was! All these months without a proper meal, and I had to go and ruin it by incinerating my mouth!
 

I took another spoonful, more carefully this time, holding it out in the cool night air. Innocent looking steam billowed upward from the spoon, but even the thought of it seemed to burn my mouth anew, and I waited until all of it had dissipated before trying again.
 

The bite hurt. The stew was still warm, and even that low heat was enough to sting my tongue anew. But it felt so good going down, hitting my empty stomach like the first coin in a piggy bank. I scooped another mouthful and waited.

I was stupid. I shouldn’t have done it. A part of me in those moments knew that no good could come of my actions, no matter how hungry I was. It could be poison. Or, perhaps returning at this very moment, the cook would come back, angry about the disappearance of his dinner.

But I didn’t care. As I gradually filled my belly, I considered fleeing with entire pot, hiding out somewhere so that I wouldn’t be caught by the nameless man who had prepared this meal. But the truth was, I sort of hoped he would return. It had been so long since I had seen another human being, and, somehow, the act of eating a full, cooked meal made me hunger for company, no matter how angry.
 

Finally, my stomach held as much as it could handle. Half the stew remained in the pot, and I settled back against the rocks, hoping that enough was left when its owner returned. I removed my boots and dug out Kiron’s old blanket from my pack. I was staying here, I had decided, convincing myself that it was unlikely the cook would go so far as to murder me once found.
 

I turned my eyes to the canopy of trees above, satisfied and comfortable for the first time in many long weeks. Through the thick covering of branches, only occasional pinpricks of stars were visible overhead. I felt warm, inside and out, and my socked feet sat just a few inches from the fire. I wiggled my toes like a little kid. And, without even realizing it, faded into sleep as completely as any soldier at the end of battle ever could have done.
 

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