Exiled (4 page)

Water runs downhill.
James repeated the sentence to himself over and over as he pushed his way through the thick underbrush that once again tore at his skin. The elevation continued to rise. Several times during his ascent the steepness required James to use his hands. After nearly an hour of skin-tearing, cramp-inducing climbing, the ground leveled. The dense undergrowth, which had thankfully transitioned from the spiny flesh-tearing plants to more forgiving vegetation, still prevented James from gaining a good perspective of his surroundings. He decided to follow a subtle depression as it trended downward and inland. All the while thoughts of the black castle plagued his subconscious.

As he continued, the depression widened and steepened. The steeper it grew, the more choked with underbrush it became.

The time he calculated that it would take him to reach the bottom had come and gone. It was at this point that he began to doubt his presumption. As the underbrush was at its thickest, the leaf litter he’d been walking on for over an hour slowly gave way to stone. He could make out a clearing ahead. He pushed through the final row of plants and into the clearing.

Large, flat, oval rocks surrounded a teal-blue pool of water. On the far side of the pond, nestled in the face of a cliff, stood a small, crudely built structure. Overwhelmed by thirst, James ran toward the pool. As he reached the edge he dropped to his knees and cupped his hands in the water. He brought his hands to his mouth.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice said from behind.

He turned quickly, spilling the water. A woman stood over him holding a spear at the ready. She was taller than James by half a head. Her hair was dark and unkempt. Her clothes, if you could call them clothes, hung by threads over her shoulders.

“Let me drink or run me through.”

“You cannot drink the standing water. You will die before your throat moistens. And death, when it comes will be most horrible,” she said casually, lowering her spear. “Come with me, boy, and I will take you to water.”

She set the spear on the ground and extended her hand. It was only then that James realized he wasn’t wearing any clothes. She studied him as if she’d never seen a naked man before. When their eyes met, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him upright with more strength than he thought possible from a woman who seemed so frail. He studied her face and realized that she must be at least ten years older than he. She held his gaze for a moment, then turned and headed toward the structure on the far side of the pool. She was careful to keep her distance from the edge of the water as she deftly stepped upon the smooth stones. James followed, finding it nearly impossible to keep pace with the strange woman.

Once they reached the structure she motioned for him to wait outside. She ducked through the opening. James inspected the carefully stacked stones, some of them larger around than any tree that made up the walls of the structure. As he tried to imagine how she could have possibly stacked the stones by herself, she returned. She gently handed him a pair of dirty looking pants. He nodded in thanks, and she turned her back as he pulled them on. The pants were stained with something that looked like blood, and the lower legs of the pants were torn away. Nevertheless, James was happy to have some protection from the flesh-tearing plants.

“Thank you,” he said.

She turned, smiled, and stepped past him without a word.

“What’s your name?” asked James.

“Kilani.”

James noticed a coil of rope hanging from her shoulder. They silently followed a well-worn trail along the cliff face. The rocky ground gave way to soft leaf litter as they moved further from the pool.

The woman stopped suddenly. She removed the rope from her shoulder and turned toward him.

“Now we may drink,” she said.

James couldn’t see any water as she made a large loop in one of the pieces of rope. She threw the unlooped end over a thicker piece of rope James hadn’t noticed that was tied to a large tree along the trail just above his head. She tied a second knot, gave the rope a tug, and repeated the process with a second coil of rope. The woman lifted one of the loops over her head and sat in the center as a child would in a swing. Without warning she pushed off the ground with her feet and glided away. James could now see why she had stopped so abruptly. The trail ended in what appeared to be a bottomless chasm. Nothing but blackness lay below. James’s head began to spin as he watched the woman pull herself out into the middle along the cliff face. The large rope that held her sling was strung from the far end of the chasm to the tree beside him. She was moving toward a waterfall that spilled out from the center of the stone face. James looked again down into the black abyss and was unsettled more by the realization that he could not hear the water splashing into a pool. Strangely enough, James had a feeling of familiarity as he looked into the abyss. Even now, the black castle urged his quick return.

Having never been fond of heights, the idea of following her was not something he would have considered even if his powers were working. The woman waved him on. He shook his head.

“There must be somewhere else we can find water,” he yelled.

“No need to yell, sound travels far here,” came her reply. It was as if she were still standing beside him.

“You will die before we reach the other watering site. Come! Drink,” she said as if inviting him in for an afternoon cup of tea.

He stepped forward, grasped the loop in front of him, and gave it a pull. He screamed in pain as the muscles in his shoulder seized. There was no denying it and no more delaying it. He needed water. After a moment of rubbing, the cramping subsided enough for him to lift himself into the sling.

James lowered himself until all his weight rested on the rope. The supporting line held firm. Slowly he moved toward the edge. He turned, his back toward the edge, and grasped the supporting line that held his sling and his life.

“Trust and move forward,” she whispered.

The words relaxed James. He took a breath and pushed away from the edge. The sling slid along the supporting line with no discernable friction. He focused his mind on breathing and his eyes on his white-knuckled hands as the place where he stood a moment ago rapidly grew distant.

He came to a stop with a jerk. He looked over his shoulder and saw the woman beside him. She gave a sympathetic smile.

“You must relax or you will seize again. You will require all of your strength,” she said.

James looked past her at the waterfall. Several ropes hung down the cliff face and into the water of the falls.

“We’re running out of time,” she said, pulling herself directly in front of the falls, which were eerily silent. “Do as I do.”

She lifted herself in the sling and slid it under her knees while holding on to the upper section. With one hand extended toward the falls, she began to swing. Expecting the supporting line to sway James clenched his sling. The line did not sway. Finally, her hand penetrated the water, and she grasped a rope. To James’s horror she released the sling so its only means of attachment to her body was tucked behind her knees. She grasped the rope that hung over the cliff with both hands. Kilani pulled herself into the streaming water headfirst and drank. James tried to fight off the panic gripping his body. He could feel his muscles tense. He closed his eyes and began to recite the primer incantation his father had taught him when he was just a child. He called it the primer incantation because it readied the mind for more complex magic. A hand grasped his shoulder.

James opened his eyes. Kilani’s dark hair was wet, and she looked rejuvenated. She nodded and slid down the support line, allowing him to position himself directly in front of the falls. He stared at the rope he needed to reach.

Before he could change his mind, he pulled himself up in the sling and slid the rope beneath his knees. He could feel his arms ready to cramp under the strain of his weight. Slowly, he lowered himself back down, allowing his legs to absorb some of the tension. He looked over at Kilani, who nodded reassuringly. After a deep breath, he shifted his weight. The sling moved away from the cliff face and rocked back toward it as he extended his legs just a fraction and leaned slightly back. As he drew closer to the dangling rope, he knew he had only one chance at grasping it. With a final swing he released the sling with his left hand and reached for the rope. He plunged his hand into the streaming water and groped for the rope, but he only felt water. He’d missed. As his momentum began to carry him away from the rope, James realized he was going to fall. In a moment of desperation, he released his other hand from the sling and tried again to grasp the rope. The woman looked on in horror as his legs slid through the loop and he disappeared under the falls.

Snowfall had left most of the streets impassable. Margaret huddled with James in front of the wall-sized fireplace, reading him a fairy tale in an attempt to lull him to sleep. James fit perfectly into the space between her crossed legs. Beneath them was a Persian rug. Margaret had a bearskin blanket draped over her shoulders to keep out the cold. She hated this house in the winter. The high ceilings and stone floors made it bitterly cold despite a fireplace in virtually every room.

As she turned the page of her
Kleine Ausgabe
version of the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales, the door whipped open letting in the ferocious winter wind. The baby, who was no baby at all being nearly three, quickly shifted from the precipice of sleep to the land of the awake and alert. Margaret let out a sigh as he jumped from her lap and ran toward the door.

A tall man, so thickly bundled one couldn’t tell if he was fat or thin, stepped into the room and closed the door. The man’s mittened hands slid back the hood to reveal black hair parted down the middle with numerous strands standing on end. It was obvious he hadn’t shaved in several days. His drawn, blackened eyes had the look of little sleep.

He smiled as the boy ran toward him. He managed to free his hands from the mittens just in time to catch the boy as he jumped into his arms. They both laughed and embraced. James Lochlan Stuart III had returned. His smile waned as he watched Margaret moving toward them. Her eyes bored into him yet her demeanor was cordial. James would have preferred an outburst to feigned kindness she was so good at emulating.

“Alas,” he replied, and smiled as he returned his attention to the child in his arms.

“You shaved your moustache,” she said.

Stuart reached up to his face, having forgotten that the moustache, common among noblemen, which had been there since before they had married was now gone.

“You look awful,” she said examining him.

Stuart stared back at his wife. The boy squeezed him tightly around his neck and showered him with kisses.

“And what news have you brought?” Margaret asked.

“Much. There is much to tell. Many things have changed. I promise I will reveal everything the moment James goes to bed.

It appeared as though Stuart intended to outlast his wife this evening because he and his son played well beyond the normal bedtime for the boy. Having not seen his father for several months, Margaret let her son break her normally militant schedule for the first time she could remember.

“A boy needs his father,” she remembered being told, “no matter what kind of man he is.”

She nodded agreeably at the time but now wondered if he was doing the boy more harm than good. Over the past year he’d been home so little. More than once the boy asked if his father was ever coming back. She always said, “Of course, your father is just a very important and busy man.” In reality she wasn’t always sure.

Finally when she couldn’t stand waiting another moment, she walked into the drawing room to break up the reunion. The two were wrestling on the floor when she stepped into the entry holding a lantern. Both stopped dead and looked up at her.

“Not a word about it, I’ve allowed you to stay up well beyond your regular bed time. Off to bed with you. Shirley will tuck you in.”

Knowing there were times to hold one’s peace—and this was assuredly one of those times—neither protested. Father and son embraced once more, and the boy tottered off. His mother kissed him on his head as he passed. Stuart stood slowly, straightening his evening jacket.

Margaret took him in again. She couldn’t help but find this disheveled and slightly wild-looking version of her husband attractive. Quickly, she pushed the thought away and prepared herself for the task at hand.

“I’ve asked Nigel to bring tea,” Margaret said, settling into a large leather chair by the fireplace.

“Very good,” Stuart replied, rounding his desk and taking a seat. They sat in silence, listening to the clock tick away the seconds. After several minutes, Nigel entered the room with the tea tray. He set it on the desk, added the appropriate amount of sugar and cream to each cup, and headed for the door.

“Good to see you back, Sir,” he said.

“Thank you, Nigel.”

“Nigel?” Stuart called just as Nigel was stepping out of sight.

“Sir?”

“You’ll bring him in as soon as he arrives?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Bring who in?” Margaret asked, “have you not seen the hour?”

“All shall be explained if you give me the opportunity,” Stuart said calmly.

Again the room was silent. Margaret held her cup with both hands, letting the warmth circulate through her fingers.

After another moment of awkward silence, Stuart took a deep breath and said, “I suppose you’d like to hear about my travels of late?”

“An explanation of your sudden and unannounced hiatus would be appreciated, yes.”

“If it wasn’t important I wouldn’t have gone, Margaret. Everything is clear to me now. I’m sure everything will be clear to you as well when I have finished.”

“Please enlighten me then.”

“Lately, I’ve been traveling more than my job requires, as you may have noticed.” Stuart paused, expecting Margaret to interject. When she did not, he continued.

“I met a man named David Ogilvy at a parliament meeting last autumn. He took me to his house in Northallerton, where I met his family. We discussed matters of great interest. There was one subject that was particularly enthralling.” Again he paused and studied his wife. If she had any interest in what he was telling her, she didn’t show it. Her expression remained like stone.

“Magic,” he said. At precisely that moment a gust of wind blew down the chimney, scattering ash from the dying fire onto the stone hearth.

“Oh, James. Please tell me you haven’t been drawn into that cods wallop. Of all the things to be wasting your time on. Magic indeed,” she said, standing and making her way to the door.

“Believe me, I’d have said the same thing if I were sitting in your place. Please just listen before you pass judgment.”

She stopped, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Please,” he said, extending his hand to the chair.

Slowly, she moved back to her chair and perched on the very edge of the seat. She leaned in and set her teacup on the desk, knowing full well that an unprotected cup on his beloved desk would drive him mad. To her dismay, he never took his eyes off her.

Stuart could tell from his wife’s posture that she would mentally dissect and tear apart anything he said. “After dinner on the second day of my visit, Mr. Ogilvy and I were sitting in his library discussing one of the topics from the last meeting. The parliament is planning on banning discussing anything related to magic in any government forum henceforth. I said it was perfectly logical considering it hardly comes up anymore, and when it does come up it is usually related to some inexplicable event. Ogilvy took the opposite stance. He believed the government’s origins were founded in magic. To deny its existence, which is what the government is trying to do, he said, would be denying our heritage.”

“Rubbish,” Margaret said.

Stuart lifted an impatient hand and continued. “Mr. Ogilvy removed an old book from his library shelf. It was covered in reptile skin and was large and cumbersome. He said the book predated the Magna Carta Libertatum by over a thousand years. Inside it spoke of powers, lands, and sorcery found nowhere in any book I’ve ever read or heard about.”

“Found nowhere because it’s fiction.”

Stuart continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “It also spoke of a date in the near future that would mark the beginning of the end of their kind. The Epoch Terminus he called it. It spoke of a terrible war in which sorcerers would all but destroy themselves. I asked him where he’d acquired this book. After swearing an oath that I wouldn’t share this with anyone but you, Ogilvy told me. He said he was part of a magical council very much like the parliament. His family has sat on this council for over a hundred generations. Ogilvy said that the book passes from father to son.”

“I asked him why none of this was common knowledge. He told me the unfaithful—the nonbelievers—pushed their magical kin and their beliefs away generations ago. They didn’t want any part of what they couldn’t understand. They were frightened of magic. They called it witchcraft, devilry, evil. The faithful, as they call themselves, were and continue to be chastised, outcast, and even murdered. History was and is being rewritten denying their very existence. A genocide of our own countrymen is happening as you and I converse. So now Mr. Ogilvy sits on both the parliament and his magical council in hopes of gaining a better understanding of the unfaithful, who now far outnumber those who believe.”

“And let me guess, he’s recruited you for his cause. Save the freaks. How can you believe in that nonsense? The government scientists have all but explained it away. All explainable scientific phenomena.”

“That’s exactly what I said. I wanted proof. If there truly was this magical world among our own, I wanted some evidence. Of course he knew I would ask, and he was well prepared. Behind a bookshelf was a hidden staircase, which spiraled deep into the bowels of the manor house. By torchlight we walked down the stone passage until we came to a massive room. He whispered an unfamiliar word and candles surrounding the room burst with flame. ‘Don’t worry!’ Ogilvy said. ‘That’s just the beginning.’ And indeed it was. Stuart sipped his tea.

“Waist-high stone troughs weaved this way and that through the room. Glowing liquids of every color flowed through the troughs. He encouraged me to step close to one that was flowing a particularly vibrant shade of purple. He raised his hands over the trough and again whispered an unfamiliar word. The liquid stopped flowing from left to right and began to flow toward the center of the trough where Ogilvy’s hands hovered. The liquid pooled there until it looked as if it would spill over the edges.

“Then it rose up out of the pool like icicles from the ground. He appeared to be siphoning it with his hands until each strand of liquid had delivered its contents into his palms. With another word and a wave of his hands, we were encased in the purple liquid. It was as if a shroud covered us. I reached my hand into the shroud, expecting it to be wet. No moisture did I feel. The energy, Margaret. I felt such energy. And then it happened.” “What happened?” Margaret asked, finding herself captivated to her own chagrin.

“We were gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean?” she asked.

“We no longer stood in the musty dungeon.”

“Then where were you?”

“Precisely my question. ‘Where are we?’ I asked. It was bright, warm, and pleasant. Only after the purple haze cleared could I begin to fathom our location. Behind us stood mountains higher than I’d ever set eyes upon. In front of us were grasslands as far as the eye could see. Grazing animals peppered the flatlands like leaves in autumn. I’d only read of places like that in books.

“Mr. Ogilvy said we were in Africa. I had to take him at his word, having never been there. Regardless of where we actually were, the fact was we’d gone
somewhere
. We’d traveled out of the dungeon by means I could not comprehend. We stayed for but a moment before he reached into his cloak, retrieved a small bag, and tossed its contents above us. Once again we were enshrouded in the purple mist. A moment later, we were back in his laboratory, as he calls it.”

“Impossible,” Margaret said with a hint of curiosity in her voice—or perhaps it was a hint of doubt.

“I wouldn’t have believed it had it not happened to me,” Stuart replied.

“Perhaps the purple liquid contained some type of drug. He drugged you, and you thought you’d left the dungeon, but in reality, you didn’t travel at all.”

“One of the many reasons why I married you my dear Margaret is that your mind is as sharp as a blade. Once I gained my footing in the dungeon—err, laboratory—and my head stopped spinning, I suggested the same thing. Ogilvy then asked me if I believed in God, and when I said I did, he asked if I had ever seen God. As you know, I have not, and when I shared this information with Ogilvy, he asked, ‘Then what makes you believe?’”

“I told him that a nonbeliever could be shown undeniable evidence that God exists and still deny his existence. Eventually, I said that faith is required. A smile crossed Ogilvy’s face, and he said, ‘So what you’re saying is that you could show me unquestionable proof of God’s existence, and if I still want to deny him, I could. However, if I were to allow for a small measure of faith then everything would fall into place. Allow yourself, Mr. Stuart, to consider the possibility that magic does indeed exist and magic will become apparent every day of your life.’

“I couldn’t help but marvel at the parallels. We left the laboratory, and I spent another day with Mr. Ogilvy. We discussed nothing but faith, as they call it, and how the faithful were being shunned from normal society. They were being looked at as outcasts, as diseased. Magic folk are peaceful. Never in the history of the written word have the faithful ever engaged the unfaithful in open combat. It is against their laws to kill another.

“I left with a promise from Mr. Ogilvy that he would come calling so—

A knock at the front door interrupted Stuart’s recounting. Nigel hurried by the open doorway toward the hall. Both Margaret and Stuart listened as the large front door groaned open then closed with a bang. A quiet conversation was followed by footsteps until Nigel was standing at the doorway.

“He is here,” said Nigel with a nervous expression. Stuart moved toward the entryway.

“May I introduce . . . Akil Karanis.”

Nigel stepped aside as a tall, lean man moved in from the hallway. What hair remained on his head was cropped close to his bronze skin. He wore a long goatee, which was all white but for a few strands of grey. His pleasant expression was accentuated by the bright blue of the three-piece suit he was wearing. Margaret had never seen something so bright—or so ridiculous.

Stuart exchanged greetings in some bowing manner that Margaret could only see from behind and thought only added to the absurdity of the situation. Stuart welcomed the tall man into the room and offered him his seat behind the desk. Akil declined and stepped over to greet Margaret.