8

  When Everything Falls

  Owen woke up, once again surrounded by dressed stone walls and basic, but well-made, timber furniture. He still found it difficult to believe where he was and his new circumstances, but his down-to-earth nature didn’t particularly require him to believe it. It simply was, and so he sat up in his bed with a little groan and planted his feet on the compacted earth floor.

  The hollow in his heart left by Mandy being ripped out of his life throbbed with an urgency that bent him double, and he put his face in his hands and concentrated for a long moment on breathing in and out. A long, shaky, sigh escaped his lips and he wondered how he was going to face the new day.

  “Good morning, my friend,” boomed a deep voice from the entrance of his cell.

  Owen looked up, but didn’t have the will to appear welcoming or even basically cheerful. He was looking at a tall, athletically built man of African background, but Owen didn’t personally have enough knowledge about the different areas of the continent to even guess at where in Africa he was from.

  “Morning,” he replied tonelessly.

  “Ah,” realised the African. “You are one who was brought here with great violence. I am truly sorry.”

  Owen choked on the words he wanted to say. They wouldn’t come out. “That’s okay” would be a lie, he thought bleakly.

  “I will leave you if you wish,” the African offered. “I just stopped to tell you that breakfast is served at this time, and we have all found that, no matter our state of mind, the day is always worse on an empty stomach.”

  Owen nodded with a half-hearted smile. “Thanks,” he said, as steadily as he could. Get up. Move. Don’t set the wrong precedent. He forced himself to his feet and took another deep breath. “Mind showing me the way?”

  “Of course,” smiled the African with a flash of white teeth. He held out his hand as Owen walked out of his cell into the early morning sun. Owen took it with gladness. “I am Abner, my friend.” They shook firmly, and Abner grinned.

  “Owen,” Owen introduced himself. “I appreciate you reaching out. It’s my second day here. Everything is still very … fresh,” he admitted.

  Abner clasped him on the shoulder and nodded sombrely. “They give you no time to come to terms with anything here,” he agreed gravely. “We sink or we swim, and either one is done heavily burdened.”

  Owen allowed the sun to seep into him and looked out over the parade grounds of the servants’ quarters. The sands were nearly perfectly flat, save for the footprints of the servants who had already gone out to the morning meal.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked at last.

  “A week, I think,” Abner nodded, beginning the walk towards the kitchens. “They do not measure the passage of time as we do, and so it becomes hard to keep track.”

  “Are all our stories the same?”

  “No story is ever completely the same, just as no story is ever completely original,” Abner smiled sadly. “Most of us have been persuaded to not bother escaping, as we have been made into villains in our homeland. A few were already alone, and they either choose to embrace this life as better than their last, or they resist with nothing to lose, and are killed. Our captors are nothing if not pragmatic in the case of our obedience.”

  “I’m still not sure which category I fit into better … maybe a bit of both,” Owen muttered.

  They walked into the long hall that housed the servants’ kitchens. A quick once-over showed Owen that the place was staffed by a mixture of human and Immortal servants, and he wondered how the Immortals felt about serving alongside humans. Where those humans the ones who had served well and been rewarded with increased freedom and responsibility? Or were the Immortals the ones who had stuffed up monumentally in some way and had practically become indentured to pay off some debt?

  The food on display moved his weary brain on from its pondering and Owen followed Abner’s lead and loaded up a ceramic plate with the selection of fruits, cheese, and roasted vegetables. Enough of it looked familiar enough to not mess with his assessment of what it would taste like, but he still wondered where the similarities between this and his world began and ended.

  Mandy isn’t in either of them, he thought numbly, staring blankly at his plate. That certainty had settled on his shoulders when he woke up. If this place was real, then so were the events that preceded his arrival.

  “Come, Owen,” urged Abner gently. It occurred to Owen that Abner must be better acquainted with his loss than he let on, and he grit his teeth and did his best not to wallow.

  I should grieve in my own time, not over breakfast. Right? I don’t know. I’ve never lost anyone close to me from my own generation before … I feel empty and lost, with nothing to guide me.

  He followed Abner wordlessly to a rough timber table with matching benches on either side of it and slid onto the end after Abner. A young man and woman occupied the other side of the table, and Owen welcomed the distraction at the same time as he felt an intense pang of guilt.

  “This is Owen,” Abner introduced him. “He arrived yesterday. Owen, these are Isaac and Jael, brother and sister.”

  They were both younger than Owen, possibly not even out of their teens. It made him wonder how young someone could be and still be a viable target to this people. The lad’s eyes sparkled with a mixture of grey, olive green, and good humour considering his circumstances. Black hair hung in thick locks about his face, and he was constantly blowing or brushing it out of his eyes. He was about as different in appearance from the girl as any sibling could be.

  “What are you in for?” Isaac asked drily.

  Is he one of the people who didn’t lose much when they were brought over? wondered Owen, at a loss as to how to answer.

  “The same reason we all are,” replied Abner with both tact and a warning in his voice. “Do not forget what it cost some of us to be brought here.”

  “Can you just not be a jackarse for once in your life?” asked Jael caustically, her vivid green eyes flashing bitterly.

  Owen noted that their only real similarities were the shape of their faces. Both brother and sister had strong jaws, pointed chins, and fine noses. Besides that, Jael’s hair was a deep red and hung damply about her face as if she had just come in from her morning run. Both were well-tanned, healthy, and attractive.

  So why did they both get taken? Why was Mandy killed? There’s no consistency. Consistency I could at least understand, if not accept, but there isn’t even that. Just … arbitrary murder. God, why HER?

  Isaac had the decency to look embarrassed about his opening line and offered his hand. Owen took it and nodded.

  “Sorry,” said Isaac, his voice low. “My humour isn’t always …”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Hardly ever,” interjected Jael.

  “…appropriate,” Isaac finished, looking annoyed at his sister.

  “All good,” Owen nodded. “I guess everyone has their own story.”

  “Some much more lenient than others,” Abner observed pointedly, “yet nevertheless, we are all here against our will.”

  Something jolted in Owen’s memory then and he looked up.

  “So what’s the deal with this place? This isn’t the main cohort of prisoners, from what I learned.”

  “That’s right,” nodded Abner. “The men and women you see in this room are those who refused the food offered to the demon of this land.”

  “It can get stuffed,” snorted Isaac. “I’m not getting religious just to eat meat.”

  “It’s more than that,” growled Jael.

  “Sure,” allowed Isaac. “Got all sorts of bad vibes off the ceremony. Whatever. At the end of the day …”

  “Wait,” said Owen, “I thought the priestess said she had use for the believers in the slave god. If you two don’t have any sort of faith, how do you fit into her idea of what is useful?”

  “That is what this dividing of the prisoners is for,” Abner noted. “The initial winnowing was basic and broad-stroked. The trials they will put us through next will test us more deeply, and they will make further decision based on our performance.”

  Owen tore into a ripe piece of fruit and couldn’t believe the quality of its flesh. He had very quickly come to the conclusion that the produce of this land was of far greater quality than anything he had back home.

  “What do these tests look like?” he asked.

  “I cannot be sure yet,” Abner admitted. “I have been in limbo since arriving here. I was one of the first of this cohort to arrive, and you are one of the last. I have been put to some works of strength to keep me exercised, but that is all. Tonight they intend to portion us off to those whom we will serve. I think they will test us in ways contextual to our masters.”

  “That’s … fast,” Owen said with misgiving. “I thought they would have taught us the language or something first.”

  “There are many languages here,” Abner pointed out.

  Owen remembered how different the young priestess had looked from the rest of the temple’s acolytes. They’re very human looking, but all perfect and attractive. Generally. I haven’t seen any dark-skinned people, but the girl who brought me here looked basically Asian. The rest looked like a mix of Scandinavian, Anglo, and Mediterranean. So she’s definitely a fish out of water here … a foreigner in a place where foreigners aren’t common.

  He twitched when he noticed the high priestess drift in through the main doors, her snake-like stare going hither and thither across those gathered for breakfast. She honed in on a blonde girl who looked to be in her late teens – if that – and flicked her hand arrogantly at the girl. The guards accompanying the high priestess moved quickly, hauling the terrified blonde to her feet and bringing her before their mistress.

  Owen clenched his fists helplessly, no idea whether he should be trying to help or if he would only make things worse. Abner noticed, and nodded his understanding.

  “Do not worry,” assured the big man. “She hasn’t done anything wrong. They will not kill those they bring here for no reason. The Undying are certainly very brazen in their entitlement, but they do treat us well besides that.”

  “Even so,” Owen growled, the futility of his anger not lost on him. “She’s just a kid.”

  “We’re all kids to them,” Jael snarled. “Even the ones who look younger than us.”

  “It’s hard to know,” Isaac countered carefully. “We can’t really ask them anything without permission, and we have no reason to believe anything they do tell us. Maybe they live as long as us … maybe they’re basically elves. Maybe something else. We’re probably better off not forming too many opinions just now.” He made a lengthy assessment of the young initiate that had just entered and was hurrying towards the high priestess. “Whatever else they are, they are certainly easy on the…”

  Jael elbowed him viciously in the ribs.

  “Do you think they can’t hear every word you’re saying?” she hissed incredulously.

  Isaac wheezed exaggeratedly for a few beats before finally chuckling and shrugging it off.

  Owen looked at the object of Isaac’s borderline indiscretion. Huh. She’s back. What is she, the teacher’s pet? She sure follows the high priestess around a lot. He sighed out loud and went back to his breakfast. There are much better people you could be following, kid. Oh, that’s right. She’s probably older than me. I wonder how maturity works here? Do they stagnate because they have nothing but time, or are they crazy skilled? Probably comes down more to individuals and how driven they are.

  A bell pealed somewhere, and benches were pushed back and those eating got to their feet. Owen followed suit on autopilot, mostly unsure of what he should be doing or where he should be going. The crockery was scraped clean into large bins before being stacked for collection by the kitchen staff.

  “Come, Owen,” smiled Abner with a warm seriousness. “We will all be doing tasks together today. You are welcome to work with us.”

  “If you can put up with Isaac’s so-called humour,” sniped Jael.

  “That’d be nice,” Owen nodded gratefully. “I reckon the worst thing I could do right now is isolate myself.”

  The day was a bizarre mixture of physical and theoretical tasks. They never left the confines of their segregated yard, but the day was filled from sunrise until sunset. There were barrels stuffed full of bags made from some tough material, and these needed to be delivered to the main gate. Abner showed the newcomers how to set them up in a line on their sides and more or less roll them along like an old-fashioned version of a trolley boy in a supermarket carpark.

  At the gate, they put the barrels upright and left them off to the side. Waiting for them were the replacements, all loaded on well-crafted, if basic, hand carts for ease of moving the tightly packed barrels. There were also several bags of what felt to Owen like grain and nuts. There were more carts than people, and so this part of the errand took a few trips.

  By that point, the sun was high in the clear blue sky, and the fourth bell of the day was tolling. Their next destination was a short language class, where a few basic words were introduced and hammered into them until they could obey the commands issued without stopping to think about it. It was the sort of class that seemed to have an end goal in mind, and only wrapped up when that goal was reached. You could either be there fifteen-minutes or the whole day, although Owen suspected there might be certain disciplinary incentives to prevent the latter scenario.

  Lunch was a selection of preserved meats and baked goods, with cheeses and both dried and fresh fruits on the side. Water was available for the taking, and Owen drank deep of arguably the most refreshing water he had ever tasted. They were seated by a tall, narrow window that overlooked the slope down into the rest of the city. It was quite a similar view to the one Owen had seen from his cell on his first morning, but now that the sun was illuminating the vast plains surrounding the city, he could see that it was farmland as far as the eye could see. Some of it was dedicated grazing and holding – although he could not make out what sort of livestock was native to this place – but the majority of it was the vibrant, almost lime-green, of new growth.

  So it’s …what … spring? Spring-ish?

  “How long are we gonna be learning to be good dogs?” Isaac was sighing into his mug.

  “Probably awhile for you,” Jael retorted.

  Abner laughed. “It depends on what they are looking for,” he shrugged. “There are different cultures here as well. Different sorts of human are useful for different sorts of Undying.”

  “Do you know what happens if we’re not useful for anything?” asked Jael tonelessly.

  “If you are unable to be shaped, they will usually dispose of you quickly and thoroughly,” Abner said grimly. “That happens very rarely. They do, after all, choose their targets quite well, mostly.”

  “Sure,” Jael butted in, “but what if we just … you know … give up.”

  For the first time in their short acquaintance, Owen saw a raw hurt coupled with what looked like fatigue of the soul. He wondered then how long she had been here. The twins took enough guidance from Abner that he was clearly the veteran – if only by a week – but they had also been there longer than Owen himself.

  Abner nodded his understanding. “They do not keep useless things,” he said quietly. “But I do hope you will not give up. We do not know what opportunities there might be in this land. For now, live. As long as you live, you have hope.”

  “Hope of what?” Jael demanded and pleaded at the same time. “We might as well be across the whole damn universe from anyone that knows or cares about us! And we’re just expected to carry on with chores and errands as if it’s no big deal?!” She dashed her sweaty hair out of her face, but perspiration still beaded on her forehead.

  Is she feeling okay? wondered Owen uneasily. It really isn’t that hot…

  Abner studied her for a long moment, as if weighing up his options. Finally, he squared his solid shoulders and leaned forward on his elbows on the table.

  “My hope is in God,” he said frankly. “My hope in Him is why I did not hang myself after what these people did to my family. My hope in Him is why I did not eat of the food sacrificed to their demon. My hope in Him is why I continue to live, trusting that there is a purpose for me to live until my life is taken from me.” He smiled. “And so I will walk on, following in my Lord’s footsteps.”

  “Amen, brother,” smiled Owen with a dawning sense of distant peace. It hadn’t quite reached him yet, but he knew it was there. It was coming. His soul ached with the quiet camaraderie that he had sort-of known he could find in Abner, but not really had the will to look for. He had been scraping through the day on fumes, forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other as similar thoughts to the one Jael had just articulated posed themselves in different ways to him.

  Fears and emotional burdens fell away from him, almost like physical shackles. He was still emotionally exhausted from everything that he had been through and had been trying to process alone, but that too, had a promise of resolution.

  I will stand, he promised himself and God. Please keep me on my feet, God. Please keep me going.