further without having to forage or hunt, things I learned to do in recent years. That’s why I’m carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows with me despite having little use for them right now.
Beneath the sacks of supplies are two boxes, one large and one small. I open the small one first. Inside are an old worn key and piece of paper. On the paper is a list of directions. My eyes move from step to step as I try to memorize them, but as I get halfway through the steps, they become too complex to remember accurately.
The first part is fairly clear. It gives directions to a pass between two mountains northwest of the lake. Within that pass is a cave that leads through to the other side of the mountains. The directions through the cave itself are complicated and require the counting of distances from tunnel to tunnel. I cannot lose this paper, so I fold it up and place it inside of my vest pocket.
As I remove the lid to the second box, a potent smell surprises me, causing me to slam the lid back in place. I open it more carefully the second time and find that part of the box contains a fuel soaking rope and cloth. It also contains a long metal handle and fire steel, the rest of what I’ll need to make a torch to get through the cave. I will just need to store the cloth and rope well so their smell is not so strong as to lead the patrols my way.
I take the rope and cloth and force them to fit inside the smaller box, removing the key first and placing it in my pack. Once I have it sealed shut, I take one of the empty sacks and place the box inside along with the torch handle and fire steel. I then wrap it several times and place it inside my nearly-full pack.
What I don’t see, however, is the animal pouch my father spoke of. This worries me at first because it appears that I have already emptied all of the box’s contents, but then I realize that the box itself is lined at the bottom with dirt. I dig several inches into it until I locate its last content.
The pouch is thick and seems to be well insulated from the inside. I can tell because pouches like these, unlike typical pouches, don’t completely conform to the shapes of their contents. I am somewhat disappointed at this. Even though my father had told me not to open it, I was hoping to be able to maybe guess what was inside based on its shape.
Still, this presents a new problem. I am not sure that I will be able to pack it with everything else I am carrying. The thought crosses my mind to empty its contents just to make everything fit, but I cast the idea away. Whatever is inside, it’s important that I not see it. At least not yet.
So instead, I have to spend several moments reorganizing everything inside of my pack. To my chagrin, I realize that because of the pouch’s shape, the only way that it will fit is to put it in last, meaning that every time I need to remove something, I will have to take it out.
With everything else packed and ready to go, all I have to do is place the pouch and be on my way, but despite my previous sense of urgency, the pouch itself once more entrances me with its mystique. I hold it in my hands and feel its shape once more with the edge of my fingers.
“What are you hiding from me?” I ask as though it can tell me its secrets without me having to open it up. “And why do you need to get to Eliana so badly? What’s at stake in all of this? And why can’t my sister know?”
My eyes study it for a few moments, the temptation of opening it up becoming stronger and stronger. I am almost about to when at the same instant, the echo of footsteps comes trailing into the room from some distant hallway.
I grab my pack, which had been lying on top of the floor, and bring it down to the dirt with me. I then franticly replace the floorboards to cover myself up, though I am unable to press them down firmly from my position.
My back is pressed down on the ground beneath me, my eyes gazing up toward the broken ceiling of the room, as someone walks in. To my relief, the footsteps initially head in a direction away from me, but then I swallow hard as they suddenly turn sharply my way.
The steps are not quick, but they are heavy as though filled with purpose. I feel them bounce into the floor and reverberate through my whole body as I imagine the person’s eyes studying everything around, looking for anything that seems suspicious, like the loose and broken floorboards above me.
I begin to tremble as the steps get closer. My breathing also becomes rushed, matching the pounding of my heart. I try to calm it down, but I can only do so much. Moments ago, I felt somehow safe and far from harm. Now, I am closer to it than I ever have been.
The person slowly starts coming into view through some thin cracks in the floor. It is a man, a warrior, but he is not dressed in the uniform of the Warrior Cult. His uniform is that of the Temple Guard, the only sect of warriors that reports directly to the queen. Why is he outside the city?
His head turns toward the window as he continues forward. I become hopeful that he will pass me by since his eyes are no longer scanning the floor, but then he suddenly looks down the second he is above me.
His eyes lock on mine, but he doesn’t say anything or react to my presence. Instead he just stares at me as I stare right back into his eyes, the eyes my childhood friend, Eason. Had it been anyone else, I might have gasped in terror and tried to somehow crawl and get away, but not Eason. I’m not afraid of him.
We used to play together all the time, but as I got older, we began to see each other less and less. Then my sisters died, and we stopped seeing each other entirely. I kept to myself for a long while after that, but one day, he came to the temple to tell me that he wanted to keep me safe. That he was planning on joining the Temple Guard for that purpose.
The Temple Guard is much like the Warrior Cult, only smaller and housed in the temple itself. Its purpose isn’t so much to protect the royal family as it is to protect the temple, which is used to perform a variety of religious rites and ceremonies, including those that take place during the Festival of Three Suns. Still, it was a touching gesture of friendship.
Eason’s lips quiver and his mouth stands half-open, but no words come out. I desperately search his eyes, trying to understand what is going through his mind, but to no avail. He looks nervous, even fearful. When it seems as though he is finally about to say something, more footsteps echo in the hallway, and a voice calls out to him.
“Have you found her?” a man calls out.
“No,” he firmly declares, his eyes still fixed on mine.
I smile at him and he smiles briefly back.
“Then we need to go. Her tracks lead into the building but not out of it. That means that she must have left by the shore where the rocks would have covered her trail. The queen is going to be furious if we don’t find her.”
Eason turns around and marches back across the room. Moments later, the sounds of movement and voices disappear altogether, though I am still trembling. Once I feel calm enough to get up and move on, I remove the floorboards once more and plan my exit.
As I do so, I look over at the pouch again, which is lying on the dirt nearby. Opening it is now the last thing on my mind. I need to get to the cave. Maybe then I will have the time and space to reconsider emptying its contents.
By the window, I watch the temple guards in the distance following the shore to the other side of the lake. I try to figure out which one Eason is. His blonde hair and tall, strong features normally would make him stand out, but the patrol is too far away to tell any of them apart.
Seeing them wander the wrong direction calms me down a little, but it doesn’t completely remove my anxieties. After my experience yesterday with the dark figure in the brush, I fear that the temple guards aren’t the only ones following me. I will have to be careful even after I reach the cave entrance.
Rather than going in the direction of the guards around the eastern shore of the lake, which is what the instructions on the paper say, I retreat to the tree line behind the building and follow it west and north, eventually rejoining the path that the paper tells me to take over the rocky hills to the northwest. There, I am able to find a crevice between two rock walls with a small recess just large e
nough to fit me and my things and rest for the night.
My desire to sleep is not present at first despite my tiredness. Instead, I feel the return of watchful eyes surrounding me and the pitter-patter of footsteps, though I want it to just be the wind. The trees rustle in the cold breeze, one that seeps through the cracks in the rocks and chills my bones. Summer is giving way to autumn.
When the blue sun rises, I begin again despite a sleepless night. The day passes nervously as I realize that my pursuers could be anywhere at any given moment. There are so many directions they could have gone after passing the lake, but maybe they’ve found my tracks again. Or maybe they’ve figured out where I’m going.
Luckily, it becomes the only eventless day I’ve had, and in the evening, I reach the pass. I find that it is not so much a pass as it is simply the point at which two mountains meet. But the directions are not clearly worded in some places, so maybe the pass refers to the cave itself.
When I arrive at the entrance to the cave, I am faced with a new dilemma. Do I wait until morning to enter so that I can get some desperately needed rest, or do I go now and risk becoming so exhausted and disoriented that I get lost?
After thinking it over, I decide on a compromise. I will try to sleep for a while, but if I wake up at all during the