The Word

Beginning, middle, and end. We rarely get all three. We get pieces, a chapter, a fragment, a single page. But all words have power. Once you read them, they are yours to do with as you wish, to share or to savor. When the pages decay into dust, the words are yours alone.

Soon they’ll disappear. No more sentences, no more words, just syllables and single letters. Tiny squares of crumbling confetti celebrating a bygone age. The Age of Paper. The Elders never thought it would survive. They’d been right. But the Digital Age died first.

Now they send us on Mission as a rite of passage. Young men and women, partnered by gender, hunt through the wilderness for new stories, sometimes a year, sometimes two. The heroes of a new age rescuing the Word.

We have become starved for stories. The right one could last a lifetime, told again and again to adoring crowds. Audiences would pay. Even a fragment meant I might not ever buy my own beer again. Though the Elders never mentioned that.

We lived on the Ledge, across the eastern water from the inundated Isle. Each autumn, the Elders ferried Companions across the widening river to the west and sent them to explore the City Beautiful. An ironic name for the beginning of the Corridor of Ruins that stretched from the far shore all the way to the shallow western sea.

Most Companions went west. Some went north to the ruins beyond the stone castle on the coast. None went south unless blown there by the Seminal winds. There was nothing left down there but alligators, swamp and concrete bayous.

The rules within the ruins were simple: You never left your Companion. You never got out of earshot. You dressed darkly, simply, conservatively, as much as the weather allowed, as a marker. Unless you were on Mission marked by a Companion, you had no business within the ruins. Alone, you were just a scavenger, a parasite, a progenitor of the Fall. An Illiterati.

All Companions serve the Word. All of us have sworn to faithfully uphold the Pact. We may not kill one who holds the Word alone. We cannot let the Word die, no matter who owns it. The Word is as much our future as our past.

The Elders companioned me with Ernest. Even his name was pretentious. Where I was at the top end of the age bracket for a Mission at nearly a quarter century, he was at the bottom, barely the age of consent. He was a zealot, a true believer. One day, he’d become an Elder, but right now he was young. The Elders thought I would be a stabilizing influence. I saw his youth as equal parts burden and opportunity.

We’d embarked at the fish camp forty nights ago. A simple metal johnboat ferried us across the smooth, dark water. Two days later, we’d hiked to the rotting edge of the Greenway. Anything within was fair game. From there we’d set out for the Lady’s Lake, her name long forgotten, at the center of the once famous city whose name alluded to the lost Song of Roland, or so my father said.

In the slanting shade of the ruins, we searched for pages sealed in plastic, buried underground. The best hunting always lay beside but not within the burnt-out schools, academies, libraries and universities that dotted this once magical kingdom. Whispered fragments told of the Knights of Pegasus who once stalked this land. And the Golden Bulls who roamed the fields at the far end of the Corridor of Ruins. Like a chapter from the Odyssey.

This day, we stood outside a tumbledown public arts academy, rectangular and self-contained, a few blocks off the Lady’s Lake. My father had pointed me to this place as where he’d found his fragment almost thirty years ago. He had forced me to memorize its six full pages before I started training. His most precious gift to me, one he’d sworn he’d never share until I went on Mission. But why brave the ruins when my birthright would come to me in time? Until he’d threatened to teach it to my younger sister unless I chose the hero’s role. His trademark delivery had turned that beginning into an open question leaving listeners with a sense of awe I’d yet to fully master.

I was searching the sidewalk pavers for a benchmark. Ernest was supposed to be standing watch. We’d been taught three predominant symbols during our instruction, an unblinking eye captured within a triangle, a simple X inscribed within a circle, and a triangle overlaid with a sideways figure eight. The All-Seeing Eye, the Geocacher and Delta-Infinity. Three Curators who had been active in this area after the Fall. Who they had been before, academics, librarians, bibliophiles, no one knew for certain.

I scrutinized the brickwork before the school entrance for the mark of Delta-Infinity, forever changing. She consistently dug up the other two’s Word caches, repackaging them and hiding them again under her own mark. The Elders conjectured she was a follow-on Preservationist, protecting vulnerable caches from the bands of Wailers, Skeptics and Deniers who fed the pages to their Bonfires of the Illiterati.

I always thought of her as she, I don’t know why. The Elders taught that women had been more literate than men before the Fall. They had been better educated, too. I always felt a connection to her. I could picture her skulking through the ruins soon after the Fall, unearthing fragile books, dividing them to ensure that something, anything survived.

Her fragments were not as valuable as the whole books of the other two, but increasingly they were all we found. The Illiterati had been thorough in their cleansings. While those barbarian bands no longer roved the ruins in numbers, many had resettled into the surrounding fortified farmsteads. Their influence and traditions remained strong. Only a handful of communities that lurked behind defensible moats like the Ledge cared enough to preserve what remained of the Word. The Elders said it was our duty to piece the puzzle back together. Their preservation formed patchwork picture at best.

It always struck me as strange that the Illiterati’s firelight led to darkness where Delta-Infinity’s buried darkness led to light. The Elders named that irony. They would probably label my Mission heretical if they knew my heart only lay with my self-interest rather than their quixotic quest. I was determined to become a hero, just like in the stories.

I spotted what I thought was the barest relief of Delta-Infinity’s sigil in the shadows of a toppled column. At first I wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of my imagination. Until I set my eye closer to the ground. Then its shadow became plain.

I reached for my crowbar. When I glanced up, Ernest was out of sight. I didn’t think much of it. I knew he’d be within earshot. Even he wasn’t that foolish. So I started prying up the paver. It took some effort and made more noise than I would have liked but slowly the brick broke free.

Carefully, I began clearing the soil beneath it. My heart skipped when my fingers brushed plastic. I pulled up three more pavers before I could see the full outline of a bag. I extracted it gently, trying not to bend it so the plastic wouldn’t crack or split. I laid it flat on the pavers, pulled out a brush and delicately swept it clean.

A small sheaf of yellowed pages lay within, print-pressed pages. The Word. As I peered through the grimy plastic, I caught the bottom corner of the first page was marked with a seven. Pressing the plastic against the paper, I caught a title on the header. My heart fluttered as I strained to read it. As my eyes pieced together the words, an electric jolt shot down my spine. This was as my father’s piece. The one he’d made me memorize before I’d set out. The fragment on which he’d made his name. Had I found another segment?

I stole a glance to see if Ernest had returned. Still nowhere in sight. Where had he gotten to? I was momentarily annoyed but reminded myself I needed this fragment. By rights it was mine. Well, ours really. We both would get the opportunity to memorize it. Me first, then him if the pages held. They wouldn’t long once we broke the seal. In a month, they would crack and flake into increasingly fragile segments.

My heart danced as I wondered if this completed the story. I’d be famous if it did. Linking up two fragments was the find of a lifetime. Beginning and end. For that I needed exclusive rights. But so early in the Mission, I had nothing to trade except my father’s memorized beginning and I wasn’t about to offer that.

I was formulating a plan when I heard a scuffle deep within the shadows between the buildings. I heard a high pitched screech, then more struggle.

“Junior, come quick,” Ernest cried.

I drew my father’s trench knife and ran, careful to avoid the newly unearthed bag. When I passed into the alley, I saw him holding her by her dark ponytail like a prize. His other hand gripped a pistol crossbow, cocked and loaded with a four-way razor hunting tip. My eyes darted through the shadows as I searched for her partner.

“Look at what I found.” Ernest beamed like a kid in training who had won an Elder’s praise.

She couldn’t have been much older than he was. She was dressed in a long denim skirt neatly constructed from patchwork panels, an unbleached cotton shirt that looked to be tailored for a man but couldn’t disguise her gender, durable leather hiking boots. A bandana on the ground that had covered her hair. A knapsack and discarded walking stick lay nearby, a bearded face carved into its bark. The sign of a watchful Elder. But none of that could match her pale, flawless skin and piercing green eyes. An unimaginable ravisher.

“Did you see a Companion?” I asked, still clutching the trench knife defensively.

“I’m alone,” she snarled through gritted teeth. She had to stoop to keep her hair from pulling.

I ignored her and looked at Ernest. He just grinned and shook his head. “She’s all mine.”

Alone meant fair game, that much was true. And I had no real interest in her, despite her looks. If the pages on the pavers completed my story, I’d have my pick of women like her. A plan crystallized in my head.

“Technically, she’s ours,” I reminded him offhandedly. “But I might be willing to negotiate a trade.”

“Trade for what,” he asked suspiciously. “You know I don’t have much.”

“I’m not interested in your box backs and instruction sheets,” I said. “I was thinking of something more like exclusive rights for each of us.”

“Exclusive how?” His eyes narrowed. But he didn’t soften his grip on her hair.

“She’s yours for the wifing,” I agreed. “But I get to memorize a number of the next pages we find in return. I’ll even let you keep her equipment.”

“How many pages?” He looped her ponytail once around his fist. She winced. I tried not to smile. He had no intention of letting this beauty go.

“One hundred.” I said the number firmly as if it weren’t open to negotiation.

He laughed. “You found something didn’t you?” He was young, not stupid.

I tried to look sheepish. “A fragment from Delta-Infinity beneath the pavers near the entrance. I dug it up but have no idea what’s inside. The plastic is intact. You can see for yourself.”

“Show me.”

Ernest guided her back toward daylight, steering her by her hair. She walked hunched, completely under his control. I felt a slight twinge for what this deal might mean for her, but I salved it with the thought that she must have known that exploring alone meant she was either a scavenger or an Illiterati and would be treated accordingly. She was lucky Ernest meant to let her live. By rights and convention, he could have killed her on the spot.

Back by the entrance, the grimy plastic packet lay just where I’d left it beside my crowbar on the pavers. It only dawned on me then how lucky I was that the girl hadn’t been a diversion to separate me from my find.

Ernest bent down to peer at it, but he couldn’t get close enough to discern the details I’d seen without relinquishing his prize. He wasn’t about to do that. When he’d satisfied himself that the plastic remained sealed, he rose, dragging her up with him.

“A hundred pages is a lot,” he said skeptically. “That could be everything we find.”

“Or we could find nothing more than this.” I pointed to the packet on the ground. “It could be nothing special, something someone has already memorized. And you’ll still come back with a wife. Much more valuable than anything else we’re likely to find.”

“How about I give you that packet and we call it even,” he suggested.

“Look at her,” I replied, sweeping my hand in her direction. “She’s worth ten times anything that’s in that packet.” I let him think on that a moment. He was young. Beauty still meant more to him than fame. And I knew he wanted her. “Fifty pages,” I insisted.

He seemed to consider that a moment. He scrutinized the packet as if trying to determine how thick it was. How many pages he’d already as much as given away. No more than ten pages at the very most. He was working up to ask for something else. Something to save face. I wasn’t sure what.

“Twenty-five pages or three months, whichever comes first,” he finally said. “I’m not working for nothing this entire Mission.”

Now it was my turn to consider. In all likelihood, we were standing on a small cache, one it would take weeks not months to ferret out. It would take him less time than that to get the girl pregnant. Once he did, he’d lose interest. Then he’d return with her, his Mission cut short. He’d have a wife, a family to raise. I’d lose a Companion and have to end my Mission, too. But by then I might be far enough ahead to make a living by the Word alone. And if the remainder of the story was longer than twenty-five pages? I didn’t think it could be.

“Ok,” I agreed, then added a caveat of my own. “But I keep the pistol crossbow.”

“Done.”

The packet disappeared into the storage compartment of my protected metal clipboard before he could change his mind.

---

That night we made camp in the ruins of a residence a short distance from the academy, across the Lady’s Lake. It always amazed me how much indoor space people had before the Fall. Whole rooms to themselves while others stood empty nearly all the time. And how little land. A kind of blindered isolation long reversed. Land was now plentiful, structures harder to maintain. Those we sometimes burned for nails.

In the room adjoining Ernest and his prize, I unsealed my packet. I extracted the brittle, once-bleached sheaf of paper. I carefully counted pages. Seven. That more than doubled what I’d had before. First, a quick read for content, page by page, just as I was taught. The edges of the paper deteriorated as I handled them. My fingers nibbled at the corners and the margins as tiny scraps came free.

The story continued to enrapture me. It picked up right after the last word my father had forced me to memorize, right after the fragment of a sentence dangling in free space that he never recited, only taught. It had to be the same text. I savored each new sound within my head as I turned each page with deliberate caution. I swam in a sea of words. I let the emotion of each sentence wash over me like a baptism. When I ran out of pages, the ending still daggled elusively out of sight. If anything, the tale had become richer, more complex.

I sat back for a moment and contemplated the small stack of yellowed pages staring back at me. I couldn’t gauge how much of the tale was left, how much remained unfound, unread. I thought I’d reached the midpoint. The second plot point at best. With the classics, it was sometimes hard to say. The markers could sneak up on you. But the story promised to be longer and larger than I’d ever imagined.

I let my mind run over the contours of its structure for a moment, just like my hands had run over the first girl I’d coaxed out to watch the moonrise over the Isle. Like Ernest’s hands were roaming over his prize. Only his to completion rather than with the anticipation I’d felt at an as yet undiscovered country that taunted me with its presence and its artificial if enforced boundaries.

I re-ordered the pages and set to reading the first once more to commit it to memory.

A page a day, that’s all I could flawlessly memorize. All any of us could. To press harder invited mistakes, burrs and hesitations, or worse inconsistencies the audience would always hear. But in a week, what I had would be mine and mine alone. A maiden on her way to a wife. 

Unfortunately, I was not the only one consumed by the ritual of wifing.

I could hear the pleas of Ernest’s prize in the next room as he threatened to do with her what he would. Through anguished tears, she steadfastly refused her consent. Blows of frustration rained against the furniture and walls as if to emphasize his claim. Finally, her pleas transformed into stifled sobs as an otherwise hostile silence descended.

The morning after, she sniffled where only I could hear as she shuffled around in the eating space of our abode. I ignored her. She had known the risk of being caught within the Greenway without a Companion. I saw no marks upon her to indicate he’d enforced his will. Eventually, she’d accept her situation. When she got hungry enough.

This clumsy courtship ritual went on for three full nights. Then, after a whispered conversation and sudden silence on the fourth, on the fifth her pleas turned to moans of pleasure. Which were even more distracting.

But perhaps not so much as her clear, high voice as she began to recite back what Ernest read to her from his tiny hoard after they finished somewhere deep into the night. Or her gentle, bell-like laughter echoed by his tenor chortle each time he corrected a mistake. She wasn’t the best of readers. She fumbled her way through. He must have burned through a season’s supply of candles teaching her as he’d been taught, only by flame instead of sunlight. I couldn’t comprehend why. As long as it kept him occupied, it was his business. I focused on my own.

By day, we tended the business of survival, collecting firewood, finding and boiling water, scavenging, snaring and cooking food. We stockpiled supplies for the time our search restarted. By night, after whatever now passed for the wifing, their conspiratorial voices whispered, like new lovers absorbed in each other’s exclusive presence as they planned their perfect, conjoined future. He taught her his secrets. He was finished.

But her laughter. The way she had looked at him each morning. The devotion in her eye. A green-eyed seedling sprouted deep inside me. I trampled it into the dirt by reciting my newly expanded tale within my head. Once I had my story, I could choose from a thousand just like her. Or so my father said.

When the week of memorization ended, I was impatient to resume my search. I’d noted something odd within the text, a series of characters and page numbers lightly underlined, like a subtle shadow on a pencil drawing. I was certain they were clues as to where the final pages lay.

I remembered my father telling me he’d always wanted to search around the academy, that he’d never found the time. The fragment he’d found had come at the end of his Mission beside the Lady’s Lake. After two full years, he and his Companion were eager to return and start their post-Mission lives. His fame from the fragment, which had literally fragmented in his hands before his Companion had a chance to memorize it, had quickly drawn my mother’s eyes to him. With her wifing, he would never leave on Mission again.

So he’d pinned his hopes on me, his only son. The sole heir to his Word. No daughter of his would brave the City Beautiful, regardless of the recognized custom of Companions, regardless of what he taught her. At the time, I’d thought his to be the backward bias of an unenlightened generation. After listening through the walls this past week of nights, I now understood his wisdom.

The seventh morning, I approached Ernest while his prize was on the cement slab out back cleaning up our breakfast, reheated rabbit stew from the night before. She was a passable if uninspired cook. Though what would I expect.

“Gather the girl as soon as she’s finished,” I told him when we met to make our plans. “I want to resume our search by the academy. I have a place in mind.” 

“Lila,” he answered coolly.

“Excuse me?”

“Her name is Lila,” he clarified in a perfunctory tone. “She’s to be my wife.”

I cocked my head before I continued. “Gather Lila,” I emphasized her name, “so we can get back to the purpose of our Mission.”

“Your Mission,” Ernest corrected. He seemed to be spoiling for a fight. I tried to keep my expression neutral as I maintained my silence. I crossed my arms like an Elder and waited for an explanation.

“Well, it is,” he said. “What interest do I share in it, now?”

“The vow you took,” I quickly countered. “The deal you made.” I paused a moment, trying desperately not to narrow my eyes. “Your word.”

“The Word,” he shot back. “That’s what Mission is supposed to be about.”

Now I let my eyes follow their natural inclination. “What do you want, Ernest? Are you calling off our Mission? If so, it will be you, not me who returns in disgrace, regardless of your newfound wife. I’m flush with a new segment of my father’s story. My fame is guaranteed.”

“Who says she has to return a wife?” he asked, almost innocently enough to be believed.

I laughed. “What do you propose?”

“I will share her with you if you let me read the pages we found.” He rushed through his words before I could laugh again. They almost sounded memorized. “It would increase our knowledge and decrease the possibility of everything being lost before we returned. It would be best for the Ledge. Isn’t that the purpose of our Mission?”

I laughed again, this time derisively. “Don’t be naïve, Ernest. Mission is as much about us as it is the Word. The balance benefits the Ledge. Altruism and inflexible ideology led directly to the Fall, you know that. Which is why the Elders turn a blind eye to our deals and always have. Hell, in training they as much as encourage them. You can keep the girl, whatever you wish to call her, whatever you wish to share with her, as long as you keep your word. The pages are mine.” If someone else read them, my power would disappear.

“And if something happens to you before we return?” he asked, this time not so innocently.

“You better hope nothing does.” I eyed him harshly, lacing my fingers through the individual guard holes of my father’s trench knife. “Those pages are fragile. They nearly crumbled in my hands. I doubt they’ll survive another reading. Especially one preceded by violence. Like it or not, your success or failure on this Mission is now bound to mine.”

At that he raised his palms and backed away as if to deny a threat was his intent. He turned toward his room to gather his equipment.

As I turned to gather mine, I noticed Lila watching from the shadow of the porch. As I met her eye, she looked away through long, dark lashes. Coyly? I wasn’t certain. An enigmatic smile played across her lips as she followed Ernest into his lair. A smile meant for me? My heart skipped a beat.

When I returned with my equipment, I found Lila whispering into Ernest’s ear. She pulled away the moment her eyes met mine. For an instant I wondered how the warm caress of her breath might feel against my neck. A princess freed from her secret donjon by a Knight of Pegasus who then swore herself to her savior.

I shook my head against that romantic notion and hardened my expression. I touched each piece of my equipment to ensure it was all in its proper place, trench knife, crowbar, storage clipboard, and now the pistol crossbow. I shrugged my shoulders to settle my pack into a more comfortable position.

“Ready?” I called across to Ernest, keeping my tone light, as if our previous conversation had never happened.

He merely nodded and reached for Lila’s walking stave leaning by the door. His only weapon other than a folding knife.

We emerged from the shadows of the residence into bright sunlight. Despite the time of equal light having passed, summer had not completely faded and probably wouldn’t yet for weeks.

I motioned Ernest to lead the way then gallantly swept a hand out for Lila to follow him. I wanted to keep both of them where I could see them. Her back provided the better view.

We returned to the academy. I set Ernest to watch with Lila by his side. I was uncomfortable with the arrangement but saw no second choice. I searched where I thought the underlined text had led me and found nothing. During a quick, cold lunch, I scanned the brittle pages again to see what I might have missed. Both Ernest and Lila watched me, his eyes full of avarice, hers with something more akin to awe. I resumed my search in the afternoon, and still found no new mark of Delta-Infinity scrawled among the pavers.

That became our ritual. Each day I searched near the academy where I thought the code buried in the pages had directed me. Each night as I listened to the pair of them whisper behind the mildewed walls, I studied the brittle text again for clues I might have missed. Each morning our cache of foodstuffs dwindled. One less day before we’d have to stockpile goods again. One less day of exclusivity for anything I found.

A week passed, then two. We paused to hunt and gather once again. Mornings took on a distinctly cooler edge.

I began to worry not as much about the three months of our bargain but about how many more readings I had of the Word I’d found. One of the pages had already cracked in half. The margins and corners of the others had all but disappeared. Each tiny fragment, each corner of confetti floating free served as a countdown to the moment I would run out of time.

Even as I tried to puzzle out the code, my mind refused to focus. All I could think about were the sly looks Lila gave me when Ernest was not around. The way she tucked her hair behind an ear. Her sidelong glances through those thick, dark lashes. The sway of her hips as she walked away. As I heard Ernest whispering to her at night, I began to think he didn’t deserve her. That she indeed needed to be rescued.

Especially because he continued offering her to me. For a price, of course. He tried every conceivable angle, from dropping the time and pages of our initial agreement to proposing that a second set of eyes might more easily crack Delta-Infinity’s cipher. I found none acceptable.

Though increasingly I left him with the impression I might consider them just to keep him from trying something rash. I kept the pistol crossbow loaded at all times. I slept with it near at hand. I slipped the low box of my clipboard beneath the rolls of clothing that served as my pillow as I slept. Not that I truly slept now, more napped like a cat constantly listening for any threatening sound. I could see Ernest’s frustration at my refusals growing day by day.

One evening before we set out for the academy again, I decided to reread my find with fresh eyes, casting aside any preconceived notions I might have formed within my mind. Late that night, as yet another precious candle had nearly burned away, it dawned on me. Where the Elders had always assumed that Delta-Infinity, like us, had avoided the interiors of the decaying buildings, perhaps in her time they might have still been safe. Or at least defensible.

Through that lens, her underscored notes began to make more sense. Her coded instructions read like a treasure map, so many paces, such a direction from the entrance. I got the sense that somewhere within the academy lay a courtyard. A hollow beneath her sacred mark would contain my prize. All I had to do was follow the path her words set forth to find that sacred brick. Only one spelled out word remained a mystery. The Spur. I had no idea what that could have meant.

Convincing Ernest to follow or stand guard might be a trick. We avoided interiors precisely because they were so dangerous. Not only were there corners and blind spots where the Illiterati could lurk, there was the danger of the crumbling building itself.  Walls, ceilings, floors, debris, all contained unseen, unknown hazards. A rusty nail could kill as easily as any Illiterati ambush.

It consumed too many of the small hours of the morning, but I finally settled on a strategy. I’d convince Ernest that our exploring within was part of the Hero Cycle, our descent into the inner cave. If we refused to confront the darkness, how could we return to the Ledge reborn?  Plus I’d prey on his paranoia. If he wasn’t there when I found the remaining pages, he’d have to take my word as to their number.

After my plan settled on my mind like a warm, comforting blanket, I caught a few hours of sleep.

Not enough.

I awoke hard to what sounded like a cacophony of breakfast preparations, accompanied by laughter both loud and shrill. Still groggy and disoriented, I emerged to find Lila and Ernest engaged in a game of cooking as if by the rules of a newly courting couple. Sly smiles, sidelong glances, pokes and tickles, small, symbolic screeches. Taste tests that were nothing short of erotic. All wrapped in the oblivious nature of the young.

As I watched their antics, I became more convinced Lila’s reactions were steeped in calculated spontaneity, bordering on contrived. She acknowledged me with an impish grin but didn’t alert Ernest to my presence. If anything, her responses became even more girlish and exaggerated. Her eyes glittered and danced as seductively as her hips even as they continued to stray to me. I wondered for whose benefit she now played this game.

I didn’t have long to ponder. A mistimed twist exposed me to Ernest’s view. His light and laughter quickly died. Lila chose to appear shocked and sheepish, as if I’d stumbled on her with her blouse partially undone. But when Ernest glimpsed her subtle, sideways smile in my direction, his mood turned sour. Which only served to confirm my earlier impression. And yet my heart still fluttered softly in my chest.

When we set out for the academy an hour later, Ernest remained sullen. He hectored Lila throughout the journey, finding fault with every little thing she did. As I led the way, he insisted she walk a pace behind him, like servant with a lord of old. I knew he was physically interposing himself between us. An act of jealousy? Or just a reminder of what was his as we traveled toward what might be mine?

Either way, it left her unguarded. A dangerous thing to do. For him or me or both of us, I wasn’t sure. She played her own game, of that I was certain. And yet something in her demeanor almost demanded rescue. Ernest seemed to have no appreciation of the true value of his prize.

I stopped before the entrance to the academy and made a show of checking my equipment. Ernest looked bored as if nothing I could do that day would concern him. It wasn’t until I pulled out my small, cylindrical candle lantern that he became interested at all. It was an ancient popup artifact meant to do little more that protect the flame. We carried them as reading lights to memorizing a text. He had one as well.

“Last night I deciphered Delta-Infinity’s code,” I announced as I secured the crowbar through a loop in my backpack where I could quickly draw it over my shoulder. I checked that the trench knife was easily accessible at my hip. “Today, we continue the search inside.”

“Inside?” Ernest cried. “No, that violates all the Mission rules. The Elders specifically forbade it.”

“The Elders also forbid me from letting you out of my sight except for necessary bodily functions.” I cast a lingering sidelong look at Lila before settling back to him. “Yet you seem content for me to ignore that Mission rule each night.”

“That’s different,” he whispered in protest. He looked embarrassed and uncomfortable that I’d laid bare our arrangement before Lila, as if I just told him his parents had sex. “You said I could.”

“I agreed to an exchange,” I reminded him. “The wifing should have waited until our return. As is custom. I was willing to overlook the transgression for what I saw as the benefit of the Mission. Are you saying I was wrong?”

In the way of the young, he hadn’t thought his argument through. He knew the question was a trap. I could see his mind chewing through the implications of answering either way.

A prolonged second later, I saved him from his dilemma. “Think of it this way,” I backed my tone into something more conciliatory. “We stand before the entrance to a cave, just like in every story we’ve heard told. When we return having confronted the darkness within with the Word in hand, we will be celebrated in the Ledge as heroes. Even the Elders will turn a blind eye if we succeed. And the tale of our journey alone will be worth nearly as much as the Word itself.”

His gaze narrowed as he considered me. Greed and fear waged war behind his eyes. I could not yet to tell which would win. He knew I was playing him, but he also knew I spoke the truth. I knew any further nudge from me would likely push him in the wrong direction. So I held my tongue and tried to coerce him with my eyes.

“I’ll go,” Lila said perkily.

Both Ernest and I turned our heads toward where she stood mostly forgotten, neither of us quite sure we’d heard her right. Our confusion must have been reflected by the expressions on our faces.

“I said I’ll go,” she repeated, then added after a moment of uncomprehending silence, “If I’m going to be bartered between you like a heifer, I want to make sure the full price is paid.”

I suppressed a smile as I turned back to Ernest expectantly. She’d prodded him perfectly, playing on his vanity and shame. If he backed away now, he’d appear to have been upstaged by the courage of his captive. If that tale was so much as whispered, his reputation would be indelibly stained. He was too young to let that stand. But he was just old enough to understand he could walk away, and force Lila to do the same, which would leave me with nothing. So once again I waited.

“Fine,” he said, shaking his head in outward disagreement with his words, “I’ll guard you while you check inside.” Then he leaned in toward me using every extra inch of his height to loom as he pointed a finger in my face. “But only today and only once. And only if this one day erases the remainder of our bargain.”

I held his eye steadily as I decided how confident I was in my decipherment. Ernest’s was an all or nothing offer. I could attempt to hold him to his bargain but it would become increasingly difficult if not impossible should he actively resist.

In my peripherals, I caught a glimmer in Lila’s eye, a subtly shaded quizzical expression wondering how I might answer, of whether I was worthy. My heart bounded. No woman had ever looked at me that way before. I felt assured that if I answered correctly, I’d capture that Mona Lisa smile for my very own. No risk, no reward. It was time to seize the day.

“Done.” I extended my hand to embrace Ernest’s new bargain. For a few seconds, our handshake becomes a physical embodiment of our struggle for dominance with both our grips growing from firm to tight. Both of us were loath to release the other first.

After we broke our grasp as if by mutual consent, we lighted our candle lanterns and proceeded inside.

From the colonnaded entrance, I could see daylight streaming through to what I had imagined was an interior courtyard covered with pavers, one of which would bear Delta-Infinity’s mark. I thought our destination might lie in that direction. But like viewing fish near the bottom of a clear-watered river, what I thought I saw was but a distorted version of what was really there.

As we passed the threshold between outside and in, I paused in a once airy foyer to allow our eyes to adjust. After a moment, the shadows around us lightened. A grand staircase stood directly before us. From exploring the outside, I knew the academy was huge, squatting across a block on its shortest side, with the longest more than double that. While I knew from the exterior that there was a second floor, and perhaps a third in one corner with a basement, it wasn’t until we stood inside that the daunting task of searching the full interior came to rest upon my shoulders like the oppressive gloom above. A Herculean labor to accomplish within a single day if I’d misread Delta-Infinity’s notes.

Directly before us where they had been embedded in bas-relief above the gateway to the stairwell, fragments of words whose letters had crumbled over time greeted us like an Anglo-Saxon commandment or the remnants of a Dantean curse.

    come      ward Mid  e Sch ol

My heart sank further as I surveyed our surroundings. To the left beyond the staircase, what I had thought to be an interior courtyard turned out to be daylight streaming through a collapsed roof. Any passage within lay clogged with rubble and rusted girders. To both left and right, twin maws of corridors yawned like cavernous openings into an ancient underworld. The castoff detritus of a once flourishing civilization, desks, chairs, tables, and other arcane furnishings and unknown machinery, lay scattered like the shards of broken teeth. A vertical bank of small, metal storage units lined each wall, most closed, a few open with doors askew like vertical caskets for entombing infants.

My deciphered directions led to the right, away from my heart, away from the direction I’d desired. Clutching the wire loop of the candle lantern in my left hand and the pistol crossbow in my right, I led the way with less confidence than I liked though hopefully that could not be discerned. Lila followed next with Ernest trailing behind. At intervals, light slashed the hallway through empty doorways that led to debris-choked rooms with front-facing windows.

Several dozen paces in, we came to the first crossroad corridor. As in a Norse saga or an epic poem, our path turned away from the light and toward the darkness deeper within.

Our pair of one-candlepower lanterns were barely sufficient to navigate the wood, wire and metalwork dangling from the ceiling and strewn across the floor, each splinter, loop and latticework of which stood ready to entangle unwary feet. In the low, flickering candlelight, their shadows danced like twisted snakes. Paint peeled from stonework walls stained where patches of mold and mildew mingled with arcane symbols haphazardly sprayed across every surface like an ancient Rorschach Test. What was I thinking?

In this new hallway, more doors lay open to primeval darkness where water dripped. Tiny feet scurried on unseen errands that caused the hollow, dentoid sockets of the rooms to echo with their skittering and chittering. The dank smell of decay and rotting dung wafted from each like a rancid warning long unheeded.

We dead-ended at the cross of a tee. To the left, the corridor terminated in ruin, any passage cutoff by the fate of the rooms beyond. The right-hand corridor had met with a similar, disconcerting fortune where the ceiling and one masonry wall had collapsed from the second floor onto the first. The visible doors that lined both hallway stubs stood firmly shut like the poor decisions that haunted my distant past.

My heart sank. Our way lay right, at least according to the whispered words of my unseen guide. But even in the dim light I could see the door I’d been directed to lay behind the cave-in. Somewhere beyond that blocked portal was our destination.

Lila noticed my hesitation. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I lied, desperately trying to think. “I’m just trying to sync up the directions with what’s actually inside.”

Ernest now drew up close as well. Wide-eyed, he took in the scene. “We’re lost already, aren’t we? I knew we never should have come inside.” His unsteady voice sounded ready to throw away his end of the bargain at any instant. I had to do something.

“This way,” I said, pointing to the door closest to the right-hand wall of rubble. I secured the pistol crossbow and gripped the knob. It grated as I slowly turned it but the door didn’t budge when I pulled. Before either of the other two could intervene to turn us back, I slipped the wedge of the crowbar into the crack.

“Give me a hand,” I said to Lila, passing her the candle lantern.

“What do you need?”

“Turn the knob so the bolt unlatches. I’ll pry it open.”

It took both her hands to twist the knob. I used the doorjamb as the pivot for the crowbar’s lever. The door moved just a fraction before it screeched against the frame.

“Stand back,” I commanded. She released the knob and moved away with the light. Ernest’s eyes kept darting back the way we’d come, clearly unnerved by the piercing noise.

I wriggled the crowbar a little deeper and pulled with all my strength. The door shrieked in protest as it resisted my efforts in tiny fits and starts. I rocked against it repeatedly, using my full weight to coerce it. For an instant, it sprang free, nearly sending me sprawling as I barely kept my grip on the crowbar that no longer resisted me, before a resounding crack halted the door’s outward progress.

I extended my hand toward Lila for the candle lantern. She passed it to me without question as if seeming to read my mind. Examining the doorframe, I found the lintel had broken. The door was bound by the weight above, free to move neither forward nor back. I didn’t test it very hard. The opening was just enough for Ernest, the largest of us, to squeeze through.

I thrust the candle against the darkness and peered inside. I saw a room lined with small, mottled tan, cracked and chipped tiles. The far wall lay obscured behind a rust and gray mass of more square-front, metal crypts, some gaping, others scaled shut. A container bank similar to those we’d seen lining the first hall, only smaller and four high. A pair of doorways pierced the walls.

“This way,” I said, ducking inside, hoping one of those doors provided an alternate route to our destination. Inside, I exchanged the crowbar for the pistol crossbow.

Reluctantly, the other two followed.

Loose tile and powdered grout littered the floor. Whole sections had peeled from the walls revealing slatted wood and pipes beneath. Pools of dark, fetid water concealed portions the floor.

One doorway led to a room that might have been a shallow, communal bath. Another led to a tiny, once windowed space with a view into the tiled room. Shards of glass from its shattered portal glittered across the floor like the castoff blades of a fragile, fairy armory.

A short hall led to that tiny room’s entrance on the left. Dead ahead stood another door, this one opening to my original destination if I’d extrapolated right. Whatever lay behind it would either confirm my reading of Delta-Infinity’s clues or refute it. My destiny. Or my doom.

The knob turned easily. When I pushed, the door gave a fraction then stuck.

I heard a footfall crunch behind me. In my excited exploration, I’d forgotten about the other two. When I turned, I found both bore expressions mixed between awe and outright dread.

“Almost there,” I remarked to reassure them.

This time I didn’t bother exchanging the pistol crossbow for the crowbar. I turned the knob and leaned my shoulder against the door. With the squealing scrape of a long-sealed tomb, the door ground against the frame. Then suddenly it was free, and I found myself stumbling into the room beyond.

If room you could call it. It was as if half the building were filled by this single empty space. Whole houses like the one we’d stayed in could fit inside. Like the largest ancient storehouse I’d ever seen.

My heart sank as the darkness swallowed up my tiny light. Pencil shafts of slanting sunlight streaming through a trio of small, high, south-facing windows at the very apex of the vaulted ceiling were the only reason I could see anything at all.

As Ernest’s eyes adjusted behind me, his triumphant, mocking laughter filled my ears. He could see as well as I the renewed impossibility of my task.

The floor contained no brick pavers, only row upon row of wooden slats burnished into a solid, smooth surface half concealed beneath layers of dust and debris. A tangle of metalwork lay awkwardly askew on the floor at far end of the room. Another tangle clung tenuously to the ceiling just above our heads.

“Face it, Junior, your day is over,” Ernest said. “We should leave this place before we draw out scavengers or Illiterati. Or the entire structure caves in.”

Anger rose within me, mingling with contempt and frustration. I stabbed my finger toward the trio of glowing windows. “As long as that light holds, the day is not yet done. That was our bargain.” I whipped back to face him. “Unless you’re saying you intend to break your word.” My right hand shifted the aim of the pistol crossbow just slightly as a warning. “Or the Pact.”

That implied question hung between us in the stagnant air. Technically, he could retrieve the newest pages from my clipboard’s storage. So the Pact didn’t come into play.

“We should use the day to return to our Mission,” he finally said, trying to sound magnanimous. “We can still accomplish something that would assure our fame before we return.”

Which was untrue. If I returned right now, my fame would be assured. His was the only one in jeopardy.

Instead of wasting more time arguing with him further, I began a circuit of the cavernous room to survey the challenge that lay before me. There was lot of ground to cover, too much by candlelight. And it wasn’t as though I could put my eye low enough to gaze along the floor and search for the discontinuity of Delta-Infinity’s mark. I was no longer certain she had made it here, but I would never let that show. It was too late to turn back, too late to read again.

In the middle of the long side of the room, a large, metalwork box-like structure stood against the wall, filling the majority of the space. Ten to twelve feet high, a foot or so deep. It looked like a folding scaffolding scissored shut. Doors broke the wall to either side, the nearest one barely containing the rubble in the hall behind it.

Halfway down that long wall, I noticed the triad of high windows on this side had long ago been broken. Rainwater had left a dark stain streaming down the wall which disappeared behind the metalwork. Before the structure, where that portion of wall would have met the floor, a few boards had warped and buckled. Bringing my candle lantern closer, I could see the dark shadows beneath. I wiggled in a pinky which met with empty space.

I stood and pounded my heel on the floor. It responded with a hollow thud. My heart bounded. Perhaps not everything was lost. I glanced back to find the other two still standing near the door we’d entered, Ernest’s light shining like a beacon toward safety. The room remained too dim to make out their expressions.

I continued my circuit. No other leaks appeared. But where spots of sun from the windows met the floor well off the northwest corner, I spied a series of multicolored, sometimes intersecting lines and curves painted on the wood as if for some ancient spell or arcane ritual. Some circled, some extended toward the far wall, some were disrupted by the tangle of fallen metal. I notice smaller metalwork structures with tiny white platforms tucked up within the struts of the ceiling, one near either wall.

Here I abandoned my circumambulation and began tracing a red line toward the far wall where the barest bright spot of an opposing platform lay. Not a courtyard, an ancient game court maybe. Midway across, a darker, somewhat circular stain near the center of the lighter floor caught my eye. I turned in that direction.

When I reached it, first I circled, bending close. Variations in color revealed themselves within the small oval of my light. I scraped the accumulated dust from the floor with the instep of my boot. Motes sparkled and danced like tiny, wingless fairies taking flight.

My efforts unveiled a two-tone painted symbol, laid thick upon the floor. A giant blue cowboy hat perched over the top of an equally giant red cowboy boot. A boot that just up from the heel had the spiked circle of a stylized spur.

The Spur. My heart began to race.

Freeing my hands of candle lantern and the pistol crossbow, I knelt and sighted my eye along the floor. Sure enough, something marred the surface. Crawling toward the spur, I brushed it with my fingertips which felt the roughness of a scratched symbol. I drew in the candle lantern and held it close. There it was, inscribed within that jagged circle, a Delta-Infinity that barely scored the paint to the wood below. I never would have found it without the clue.

First, I traced out the board beneath the spur. The line of the slat was smooth and unbroken. Farther afield, I noticed hairline cracks in the paint of the boot and hat. A narrow gap shadowed the space where the end of one board butted up against another.

I pushed the candle lantern back toward the edge of the circle and set the pistol crossbow beside it. Then I retrieved my crowbar. Its wedge was too large to exploit the narrow gap. I set it down and drew my trench knife. The tip of its blade barely fit.

I barely noticed the other two approach. I remained focused, fixated on my goal. I wedged the knife into the gap enough to gently pry up the board. The end kept popping up and dropping back before I could secure it. I caught it with my fingernails and wriggled the trench knife a little deeper.

Finally, I wormed my fingertips beneath the board and pull it free. Then another, and another to either side. I sheathed my trench knife and retrieved the candle lantern. Within the hollow lay clear plastic, a brace of slightly yellow pages safely sealed inside. The final section of the story. It had to be the last. Beginning, middle and end. I’d closed the sacred loop.

From behind me I heard Lila whisper, “…don’t hurt him.” I may have missed a word before that. I’d never know. As my mind tried to puzzle it out, I turned to face her. Just in time for something hard to ricochet off my right ear and then my shoulder.

In that frozen moment, a numbing spread. Like when you strike your thumb with a hammer on a cold winter morning. You know in a second it will hurt like hell. You only have to wait. I had just enough time to wonder what had just happened. What I had done. Then pain erupted from my ear to my shoulder with red-hot, stinging needles. To my right, the room rung like a cracked bell.

In the dizzying, disorienting moment that followed, the bearded face carved into the rough bark of a walking stick flashed past my eyes, an image out of time. Swung like someone meant it. Where the back of my skull had been. Just the moment before.

I didn’t think. I reacted. My left hand scooped up the crowbar and swung it backward with what remained of my strength. Its arc came to a sudden stop that jarred it from my hand. Half an eternity later, Ernest then his walking stick came crashing to the floor. An anguished, slow-motion scream trailed behind him.

An instant later, we both reached for the crowbar, the closest weapon at hand. My left gripped it first. My right still wouldn’t fully close with all its strength. Ernest grabbed it with two hands and sought to wrestle it away. We rolled one over the other, each trying to claim it like children just learning to fight over a favorite toy.

He quickly won that contest. When he finally wrenched it from my grasp, he straddled my abdomen like a bully in the play yard, pinning my trench knife to my side. He raised the crowbar high above his head, red rage shooting from his eyes. I knew its descent would be the last thing I saw.

In the distance, I heard Lila shout, “Ernest! No!”

That plea made no impression on him. I tried to cross my arms before my face, knowing his blow would shatter one or both. They moved too slowly, like fish swimming upstream while his backswing rode the rapids.

Suddenly, he arched backward. The crowbar clattered from his hand. He clawed behind him as if he’d been stung. I seized the opportunity to lift a knee with all my strength into the small of his back to throw him aside. Before my knee found flesh, my lower thigh encountered a point of pain that shot through it as if I’d been stabbed. A pressure retreated then snapped free.

Ernest wailed in anguish, writhing off of me as he clutched at a torment he couldn’t seem to reach.

I swept up the discarded crowbar and rolled to my feet, my eyes not completely focused, uncertain of what they were seeing. I dragged my gaze to Lila. Her face was a mask of perfectly shocked anguish, her eyes wide, her mouth frozen in a tiny O. She gripped the pistol crossbow with both hands, her elbows locked, the weapon extended as far from her body as she could get it as if repulsed by what it had done.

I lunged at her with the crowbar, knocking the weapon from her hands before she awoke enough to reload. I drew my trench knife and brandished it to reinforce my warning before turning back to my Companion.

Ernest’s struggles had already slowed to half-hearted swats at the quarrel sticking awkwardly from his back. Only an inch of the ragged shaft remained visible. An inch Ernest just couldn’t grasp. The bloody, broken fletchings lay nearby on the floor.

More blood pulsed from Ernest’s wound, saturating his shirt just below his ribcage. With each contortion the broadhead sliced into some vital organ, redoubling his agony.

My knee had driven Lila’s malice deeper. Ensured there was no way he could survive.

Between agonized cries, Ernest pleaded with us for help. Eventually his words became as slurred and incoherent as his flailing, a clockwork toy winding down. We could only watch, muted, as his struggles ebbed like the flow of blood that diminished from his wound, slowed but unstanched.

Eventually silence descended as words failed all of us, as if we’d each become Illiterati.

“I didn’t mean …” Lila finally stammered. “He was going to...”

I silenced her with a look. She recoiled. Belatedly, I realized my trench knife was still in my hand. I sheathed it. I knew I couldn’t use it anyway. I mechanically secured the crowbar next. I had trouble threading it through my backpack loop, my hands were shaking so much. I retrieved the pistol crossbow, which seemed little worse for wear, and stowed it, too.

I scavenged Ernest’s equipment for everything of use. Dutifully, I placed his small cache of words in the clipboard compartment beside my own. Then I added the most recent packet of pages from beneath the floor. I did nothing more than glance at them before I sealed them within the tiny, metal chamber. They could wait. Ernest couldn’t.

“Help me,” I eventually said. Reluctantly, Lila did.

We struggled with his body. We wrapped him in his blanket and dragged him back the way we’d come. But he wouldn’t fit through the pinned door beyond the tiled room. I was afraid if we tried to force it wider, we, too, would become trapped inside. Or worse.

So we dragged him back to the expanse. I cleared more boards and laid him within the shallow depression beneath the floor. I ensured his blanket was tightly wrapped. There was nothing else to do. And yet I couldn’t leave him in this foreign place like an unnamed scavenger.

The light began to fail us. My candle lantern was burning down. The sun through the high windows had swung to where it no longer lit the floor. Its spots of light climbed the far wall, creeping closer each moment to horizontal. The day was nearly done. We had to leave.

As a final act, I laid Lila’s walking stick along Ernest’s body and then tented the floorboards I’d ripped up across it. I slivered one with my trench knife until its end was a mass of thin, curled wood. With the nub of my candle, I lighted the tangled kindling. Once my improvised torch fully caught, I thrust it beneath the wood atop him. I tucked the burning candle nub in the hollow beneath the floor. Its tiny flame licked the edge of the boards.

I may not have been able to bury Ernest properly, but I could ensure he had a hero’s pyre, just like in the stories. He deserved at least as much as my Mission Companion despite his errant end.

I watched to make sure the flames took hold. The rising smoke was black and acrid. Artificial like all ancient wood. But the wood was dry. The flame took to it readily enough. I motioned Lila to proceed me as I turned toward the door.

As we trudged back through the deserted hallways, I thought about what to do with her. I thought about what she’d done. In killing Ernest, she’d saved me. Without her warning, it might be my body burning in that wood floored hall. She didn’t have to do it. Perhaps her sidelong glances had been genuine. I turned it over in my mind like my fingers might caress a worn shell cast up by the sea.

It was twilight by the time we reached outside. The academy loomed over us in an oppressive silhouette. A shadow of smoke trailed from the peak of its highest, broken windows.

With no time to scout out a fresh abode, I directed Lila back to our previous shelter. It should be far enough from the academy even if the fire spread.

When we arrived, I retreated to my room, closing the door behind me. I didn’t even bother with Lila. I had no idea how Ernest had secured her. I didn’t care. She’d be gone by morning. I wasn’t hungry and didn’t think I could concentrate on the Word. So I laid my trench knife near at hand and collapsed in complete exhaustion.

---

I awoke groggy and disoriented as naked warmth snuggled up behind me. My body tensed but my mind and eyes refused to focus. Lila shushed me. Her whisper tickled something deep within my ear.

“For weeks I’ve only known you as Junior,” she said, circling my bruised ear with a finger. “But since I first met you, I wondered if that was really your name.”

“Everybody calls me that so they don’t confuse me with my father,” I said, distracted by her touch.

“So what is your name?” She ran a finger down my chest. I shivered.

“Sam,” I said. It had been so long since I’d used that name, it sounded almost foreign.

Until she whispered it back, wrapping her lips and tongue around it with just the right intonation to make my blood sing.

She initiated the wifing, or some exotic variant thereof. The whole time, she repeated my name like a mantra. I could barely keep my eyes open, floating for an eternity between reality and a dream. The endless pleasure of a thousand nights.

When she finished, a wall of darkness crashed back over me.

---

I awoke cold, aching and alone. Had last night merely been a dream?

The rattle of metal beyond my door brought me fully into the present.

I unsheathed my trench knife and crept toward door. Cracking it open, I peered out. Lila was making breakfast. No Ernest. It all came crashing back, the night, the day before. None of it had been a dream.

“Morning,” she said cheerily as she poured boiling water over what I assumed were grits from our supply. Ernest’s supply. The rising steam carried a tart scent of berries with it. Where had those come from? “Hungry?”

I nodded slowly, uncertain and slightly embarrassed as I stood there half-clothed with a trench knife in my hand. After the night before, it seemed an inappropriate greeting. Lila didn’t seem to notice.

“Get dressed,” she said. “It’ll be ready in a minute.”

I retreated back inside. I thought frantically as I pulled on clothing against the morning chill, deciding what to do. I couldn’t keep an eye on her and memorize. Or should I even memorize at all? Should I return immediately? A dead Companion took any onus of the Mission completely off my shoulders.

At the same time, returning before I’d checked out the newest Word seemed irresponsible. The journey to the fish camp would take days. If something happened to the manuscript, it would be lost. Forever.

As I buttoned my flannel, I wondered if I should take Lila back with me. Technically, she was wifed to me, or so she could say. But as an outsider and scavenger, the Ledge wouldn’t recognize her claim. Unless I did. Was that what I really wanted?

My heart fluttered a moment as I heard more cooking rattles. The way she’d looked at me. The way she’d smiled. As if this arrangement were the most natural in the world. I could easily envision waking up to her shining face each morning.

I tucked in my shirt and strapped the trench knife onto my belt. This time I strode out like it was my rightful place and position.

She had a bowl and a mug laid out for me, both steaming. She’d thrown a purple paisley handkerchief beneath them on the table like a placemat. She beckoned me to sit. She stayed standing and waited like a serving girl.

I settled into the chair she’d set before my repast. The bowl contained grits with a sprinkling of crushed walnuts and fresh berries. Cooked perfectly, not even needing a pinch of salt. The mug held strong, dark tea. Mildly tart yet sweet even without a trace of sweetener.

She stood demurely the whole time and watched me eat. I wolfed it down. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since the morning before.

When I pushed back from the table, I eyed her narrowly. Despite her innocent gaze, I had a feeling I knew what she was up to. With Ernest gone, her only hope was me.

A full stomach cleared my thinking.

“I’m surprised you’re still here,” I said evenly. “Why is that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She looked genuinely surprised. “You rescued me from Ernest.” She bit off his name like a curse.

“I should kill you for that lie,” I mused, my hand drifting toward my knife.

She laughed as if she knew that would never happen. “And forgo pleasures like last night?”

“You’ll get pregnant,” I stated flatly. “In that, you seek to bind yourself to me.”

“There are ways not to.” She smiled coyly. “Forbidden ways. Ways you’ll enjoy. Last night was only the beginning. When you’re bald or gray, you’ll thank me.”

She looked at me with the same devotion I’d seen her direct at Ernest, the same secret smile, the same girlish laughter in her eye. My heart fluttered. My face felt flush. I knew then I couldn’t turn her away, not yet.

“You can stay until I return east,” I finally said. “Until then, you will make yourself useful.”

She nodded subserviently yet slyly as if this were the answer she’d expected all along. She cleared away my breakfast dishes, humming contentedly as she began to clean them.

I convinced myself this was a prudent act, that I could memorize the new pages faster with someone to cook and perform other daily chores for me. That it was less risk to have those pages stored in my head before I traveled. That she would serve as a replacement for my dead Companion, if only for a little while.

That day, Lila improved our food stocks, drew water and chopped wood. I examined the packet I’d uncovered the day before. At a high cost. I hoped it was everything I’d dreamed.

I gently removed it from the storage area of my clipboard and laid it on the table. The clear plastic remained intact, showing no signs of the clouding and cracking like the first. I unsealed it and removed the brace of pages. They didn’t feel quite as brittle as the others, just delicate rather than verging on desiccation. A careful count revealed fifteen. A big cache. The same title header as the first I’d found. A consecutive page numbers. I peeked at the final page. There I found the block of white space I was taught to associate with the end of a story. I let out a contented sigh. Indeed this was the last of it.

I didn’t bother pre-reading it this time. I wanted to savor the remainder of the story as it unfolded page by page. I needed to be clear-eyed and clear-minded to familiarize myself with each passage, to understand its context to those around it and to those I’d already committed to memory. So I stowed the pages back beneath the top cover of my clipboard. Tomorrow, I’d take to the task of memorizing the first page. Today, I opted to inventory and repair my equipment as I nursed my bruises and began to prepare for my eventual journey home. Without the daily drudge to handle, I thought I might even catch up on some sleep.

That last remained elusive. Once again that night, Lila curled up beside me. Once again, she initiated the wifing, yet different this time. Only this time after we finished, she refused to let me sleep.

“Tell me the story, Sam’s son,” she said just as my eyes began to fluttering shut.

“What? No.” I groaned and tried to roll over. “I’ll tell you in the morning. I need to get some sleep.”

“In the morning you’ll be memorizing. And I’ll be hard at work.” She laid her hand upon my chest. She brushed through my chest hair in an obscenely ticklish way. “Tell me now. Stories always sound better in the dark.”

I tried to wheedle out of it by whining, though by now I was coming back awake. “I don’t even know the ending yet.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she persisted. “Just practice what you know. We can talk about it, savor it together, like the other. Haven’t I earned it? Please.” She sounded almost childlike in her begging.

I could tell she wouldn’t allow me to rest until I recited something. Where’s the harm? It wasn’t like she could write it down.

Slowly I sat up and rearranged. I resolved to offer her just the opening, a single page. And only for a price.

“Ok, a small portion,” I said, “just the beginning. But only if you offer me something in return.”

“Haven’t I promised you everything already,” she teased.

“Not that,” I said. “I want to hear your story. Tell me who you are.”

She thought about that for a moment. “Ok,” she finally agreed, “but you first.”

And so I began, reciting the opening my father had taught me.

“Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes…”

She sat fawnlike, still and silent, as if enraptured. I pictured her eyes as doe wide, though of course I couldn’t see them. I could barely hear her breathe. But breathe she did, sighing seductively when I finished.

Then she matched me measure for measure, time for time, revealing the barest glance of who she was just as I had revealed the first glimmer of the story. I learned that she had been the daughter of an Elder, in a community on the far end of the Corridor of Ruins. I, too, became enraptured as I listened to this tale of my lady from beyond the lake. When she finished, I, too, was left desiring more.

For thirteen days, that became our ritual. Each morning she waited with a splendid breakfast. Each day, I memorized a new page from the cache beneath the floor. Each night, she woke me to initiate a different variant on the wifing. When I lay back, exhausted, she begged me for another page. After my father’s six were exhausted, I continued with the seven from the cache I’d found when Ernest claimed her. With so many pages now, I needed the practice to make certain those, too, were set within my mind. Or so I told myself.

Just as slowly, she allowed me to glimpse a little more of who she was. Like flashes of skin you weren’t certain that you’d seen. An intimate glimpse which you weren’t sure whether you were supposed to see or whether she’d flirtatiously allowed you to.

Each of us became like a maiden slowly removing veils, knowing the other’s pleasure would be heightened by anticipation.

And so it went. Thirteen days closing in on an ending as I continued to appreciate the unfolding genius of the story. Thirteen nights in paradise with thirteen different virgins.

I treasured our time in darkness. I embraced the inky intimacy of midnight. Each day, I felt as if I were walking through a fog, memorizing through mist. Some afternoons, I could barely keep my eyes open. I had no idea how she stayed so buoyant. I wondered when she slept.

And yet I didn’t care. Our time could go on forever. It was as if our story could become some other future’s Word. She the outcast princess from the shores of Lake Seminal across the Bay, beyond the Corridor of Ruins. Me from the Ledge overlooking the slowly submerging Isle, her troubadour and savior. If only I had the time, talent and paper to write it down. Instead I savored each instant and buried the memories deep within my heart.

When I knew our time together was drawing to a close, I toyed with inviting her to join me in the Ledge. I wouldn’t be the first Companion to return with a wife. But I’d be the first to return with the likes of her. A complete story and a ravishing beauty. I savored the thought of all the green-eyed looks I’d get from the other Companions who had come back empty-handed. As much, I relished the thought of surpassing my father’s fame. I resolved to do it.

On the fourteenth morning, I awoke not to the scent of another splendid breakfast, but to the smell of smoke. In my groggy half sleep, I thought our shelter had caught fire, that the blaze I’d set in academy two weeks ago had spread. I rushed out, half dressed.

And saw Lila holding a sheet of paper. My clipboard’s compartment lay open on the table. A merry little fire burned within. Beside it my pistol crossbow, the string locked, a broadhead loaded. No, I corrected myself. Her pistol crossbow.

“What are you doing?” I stammered, the morning chill reminding me I hadn’t donned a shirt.

“Claiming my return,” she answered, tilting down the page until the flames began to lick at her fingers.

“You’re Illiterati,” I cried. “You’re destroying the sacred Word.”

“Illiterati?” She laughed. “No, I’m just a scavenger. A scavenger like you.” She dropped the page into the clipboard compartment before the flames singed her fingers.

“You said were an outcast,” I protested.

“A voluntary outcast,” she said, feeding the corner of another page into the flames until it caught, “the same as you. You think you’re the only one on Mission? You think your community stands alone? You aren’t the only one with a dead Companion.”

“I should kill you,” I said. This time I meant it. I drew up to my full height. I knew I had her by four inches and nearly fifty pounds.

Effortlessly, she picked up the pistol crossbow. I remembered the damage it had done to Ernest. “And even if you did, it’s too late. You’ve lost your story. It now belongs to me.” She fed another sheet to the flames. “I’m only doing what you would have done eventually. Destroying the evidence so no else can claim your Word.”

When she glanced down to find another sheet, I lunged at her across the table. Startled, she fired her crossbow prematurely. The broadhead grazed my side.

I hit her with the full force of my weight, driving her to the floor. My forearm found her neck. I leaned onto it.

“If you kill me,” she rasped through the pressure on her throat. “I can’t give you what you had. What you desire.”

I leaned harder.

“With me your story dies.” She croaked each word. “The Pact. Ernest told me.”

I watched her face redden to nearly purple. I wanted to kill her. I wanted her dead for what she’d done. To me. To Ernest. To the story. She’d used us all. But I couldn’t kill the sacred Word. I couldn’t betray my vow.

So I released her.

I snatched the pistol crossbow from beside her. Jumping to my feet, I grabbed the remaining pages from the table. They crumbled in my hand. These weren’t from the final cache, they were from the first. In anguish, I turned to my clipboard container. Remnants of the Word smoldered within. She’d used Ernest’s box backs and instructions as the kindling for her pyre. Blackened flakes with live embers that wormed along their edges floated free.

“I burned the last pages first,” she wheezed from the floor, rubbing her neck. “Your Word is mine.”

“I don’t believe you,” I spat at her. I cocked the pistol crossbow and dropped in another quarrel. “There is no way you could have memorized the story. You are Illiterati.”

Slowly, she rose from the floor. As I raised the sights to center on her chest, she cleared her throat then began reciting. “Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes…”

I lowered the weapon as she continued. Not a single word slurred or lost. Not so much as a hesitation. How had she memorized it from only a single listening? It seemed impossible.

After a single page she ceased, on the exact same word I had thirteen nights before. “What I didn’t hear, I memorized from the page. I ensured you would only be wakeful for as long as I entertained you. While you slept, I was free.”

I deflated, knowing I’d been defeated. I’d become complacent, just like Ernest. And so she’d won.

“We are supposed to be on the same Mission,” she said when I said nothing. “We don’t profit from the Word. We preserve it. But we recognize the time of the written Word is done.”

“So now what?” I finally asked.

“You can return with me,” she said, adding quickly, “as a servant, not a Companion, not a husband. We can always use another arm to battle the true Illiterati. There are other ruins, other stories to claim. You have a keen and careful eye. Maybe one day, if you prove yourself, I’ll teach you the ending to this story. But if you fail me, you’ll be bartered like a bride. Just as you did me.”

“Or?” I said, sensing an alternative.

“Or,” she continued, “you can travel east with a dead Companion to explain and the incomplete fragment in your head.” She shrugged. “It’s more than most.”

“With that alone,” I boasted, “I could have my pick of the likes of you.”

“But not me,” she stated simply. “And never me again. Perhaps one day you’ll find those final pages again. Or, perhaps, a son. Until then, that wound needs tending. Without help, I doubt you’ll make it back.”

Blood ran freely down my side. The wound she’d inflicted was deeper than I’d thought. As the adrenaline wore off, I felt lightheaded, exhausted. Like all I wanted to do was sleep, just like after each night we’d spent together. The nights she’d cast her spell. I could barely hold the crossbow steady.

I considered her offer. I considered returning home and making up an ending to the tale. A fool’s errand. Some tried but you could always tell. The final pages mattered, the final sentence even. No one crafted endings like the masters. No one has that much time or imagination. I’d never get it right.

I thought of Ernest, my assigned Companion. I regretted looking down on him. I should have tutored him instead. He’d had nothing, a few technical pages, an instruction sheet, some box backs. I’d had fiction even before we’d set out. But now they were hers and hers alone.

I hung my head. I handed her the pistol crossbow. She took the trench knife and the crowbar, too. With those secure, she dressed my wound. She knew she needed no further bonds or shackles. Her possession of that unknown ending alone ransomed my good behavior.

When I set off down the Corridor of Ruins, my back was to the rising sun.


© 2017 Edward P. Morgan III

Penance

Penance - a reading (on YouTube)

The time of storms is near again.

Watchfires burn the northern sky.

Among the ruins I cultivate a garden,

Another refuge from this darkening age.

Will this one survive?

I tend alone.

A chill wind whispers to a cold scream.

The tempest drowns the warding flames.

Icy stones slash tender blossoms.

Petals blacken.

And are gone.

I need to leave this lifeless place,

This fallow world of my creation.

As once I wielded death,

Now the blade torments me.

5/86 

© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III