The main roads will be watched now.”
“Is there another way to Bethany, then? A way Garen won’t be watching?”
Aamon thought a moment and then shook his head. “It’s
dangerous. Maybe even more so than dealing with the soldiers.”
“How?” Kevin asked.
“There are bush trails that lead to Bethany, but they take us near places that are … deeper with Affinity. Chaotic places.”
“Do we have a choice?”
Aamon fell into a brooding silence again. The answer was clear.
“Okay, then,” Glenn said, reaching for the trapdoor above her.
“We go.”
Aamon leapt forward and closed the trap. The light made jagged shadows across his brutal face.
“If we go, you must stay with me. If you see anything outside the path, ignore it. Don’t speak to anyone or anything except me. Do you two understand that?”
He looked to each one until they nodded.
“Good. Now here,” he said, handing them bundles of cloth from the leather pack. “I can’t have you running around in those clothes.”
Glenn drew a rough-hewn set of pants, shirt, and fleece-lined leather coat into her lap. They smelled musty and old.
“Quickly,” Aamon said.
Glenn and Kevin each retreated to a separate corner of the tunnel, and Glenn slipped out of her delicate Colloquium clothes and into the heavier Magisterium ones. They were stiff and scratchy against her skin, and fit poorly. She yanked a leather belt tight around the pants and hoped they’d stay on.
Aamon threw the trapdoor open and Glenn climbed out behind
him, then turned and pulled Kevin up. He swooned when his feet hit solid ground.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said with a grunt. “Fine. Let’s get moving.”
They were surrounded by forest, just off the side of a wide dirt road. Aamon ignored the road, favoring a path that cut into the forest. It was narrow and crooked, sometimes nearly disappearing amongst encroaching roots and weeds. Glenn looked back the way they had come. All she could see were trees and fields, but somewhere beyond all of it sat Haymarket and its bloody square. She saw Garen Tom’s scarred face as he stood there, knife in hand.
He’s after us now.
“Glenn!”
Aamon was standing at the trailhead, waiting for her. Glenn quickly followed with Kevin in the rear.
Every mile or so along the path, there was a marker, an obelisk of moss-covered gray stone that reminded Glenn of the security cairns that sat on street corners back home. But instead of call buttons, a divided-circle rune was carved at the head of each. Aamon was silent as they walked, but whenever he passed one of these, he would touch it lightly and whisper a few words before moving on.
“What are they?” Glenn asked.
Aamon glanced back at her. “Markers,” he said. “For pilgrims.
This path used to go to Marianna. Though if the temple we saw this morning is any indication, I doubt it remains.”
“That symbol. The circle. It’s about … Kirzal.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s a god?”
“Not a word that’s in any of your books at home, is it?”
“We know what gods are,” Glenn said. “We just don’t need them anymore. And it looks like someone here doesn’t think you need them anymore either.”
“Or someone thinks they’ve taken their place,” Aamon said.
“The Magistra?”
“Who is the Magistra?” Kevin asked.
“She rules here,” Glenn said. “Isn’t that right?”
Aamon nodded. “And let’s pray you never learn more about her than that.”
As the sun peaked and started to fall again, Glenn cursed herself for not being smart enough to wear her thermals under the Magisterium clothes Aamon had given them. The rough wool never stopped itching, and no matter how tightly Glenn pulled her coat around her, she was still cold. Her feet ached with blisters, and the knot in her back was only getting tighter.
But while she may have been uncomfortable, Kevin looked far worse off. Despite the chill in the air, there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead, and his shirt was damp. He lumbered forward, head down, one hand tucked tightly into his side. He nearly stumbled into her when she stopped to join him.
“Hey,” she said. “You okay?”
“Me? I’m great. Good. Just, you know … taking a walk in the park.” He bent over and braced his hands on his thighs, swallowing hard. His skin was pale. “Enjoying the sights.”
Glenn straightened him up and let him lean on her. She pushed aside his jacket and shirt.
“Hands off, Morgan. No time to get fresh.”
Glenn yanked away the cloth. His wound was a livid red,
smeared with a new coating of blood that stained the waist of his pants.
“Aamon!” Glenn called.
“I’m okay. Really. We need to keep moving.”
Aamon appeared. As soon as he saw Kevin, he squinted into the forest, searching through the trees.
“Sun’s going down,” he said. “We need to get off the trail soon anyway.”
“I’m fine!” Kevin insisted.
Glenn leaned over him. “Well, I’m a little tired,” she said.
“Maybe you can carry me the rest of the way?”
Kevin managed to laugh before Glenn threw one of his arms
across her shoulders and eased him off the trail behind Aamon. They settled in a cramped clearing several yards away. Aamon dropped his pack and Glenn set Kevin down against the trunk of a nearby tree. His chest was rising and falling heavily. He looked pale. There was a patch of dark blood on his new shirt.
“Pull your shirt up,” Aamon said.
Kevin grasped for it, but his hand went weak. Glenn did it for him, exposing his wound while Aamon pulled a cloth and a leather skin of water out of his pack and knelt before him. He made Kevin take a long drink of water, then wet the rag and drew it down his side, gently cleaning the wound.
“So,” Kevin began, his voice distant and dreamy. “You grew up here?”
Aamon rung pink water out of the rag. “Farther west,” he said.
“What’s it like there?”
“Flat and hot. A desert. It’s where I was trained for the
Menagerie. The Magistra’s guard.”
“Was Garen Tom there too?” Glenn asked.
Aamon glanced at her, then rinsed the cloth and put it back in the bag. “He was. We trained and fought in that desert as soon as we could stand. Half the little ones we grew up with were dead before they were twelve.”
“How did you survive?”
Aamon opened a small clay jar and dipped his finger in it,
drawing out more of that green paste. “Kizral’s will.”