Jak and Daxter: Legacy

Chapter 3: Warm Farewell

No funeral procession in Sandover Village passed without a trail of ambersinge incense smoke billowing behind. So when Jak awoke to its smell – golden, powdery, and warm – he figured that he, too, was headed for a long nap in a cold dirt bed.

But then Jak remembered: the dead can't wish they were dead. And as light stabbed his eyes, aches wracked his limbs, and realization struck his mind senseless, he found himself doing just that.

"Damn it," he managed to mumble. "Precursors damn it."

A sudden stirring of footsteps on wood and the brush of air against his body meant that someone had neared. He let his head flop to the side and coaxed his heavy eyes to glance up. Between the bleary smudges of a dim room, he could make out two green irises, a matching, messy braid, and two hands criss-crossed over where a mouth should have been.

"Precursors, I think he's awake," came the figure's distant voice. "He's alive-"

"Stay away from him, Keira! We don't know if…"

"Wha…?" Jak murmured.

He strained to hear the rest but found his ears denying entrance to all but a few vowels and consonants, as if someone had stuffed them with cotton. But he'd heard 'Keira'. That must have been the green-haired figure above. He found himself smiling at the thought. That meant he was home, at least. But why had the other one told her to stay away? He tried to reach out to her foggy form, to tell her in what little way he could that all was fine, but found he couldn't move his arm.

"-still Jak."

"Yes, but… don't want another… no condition to…" the second voice replied in fragments.

"-can't be serious! I'm taking…"

There were gentle fingers at one of his wrists, moving around as if working on something. The second voice came back, louder this time, and the hands moved away.

"No! We should at least get him aware and talking, first. We need to assess his state of mind. Now, go out there and calm the villagers while I wake him up."

"What am I supposed to tell them?"

"Tell them that I'm busy grieving."

"And if they ask questions?"

"Then you tell them to stop sticking their noses where they don't belong and get back to work! Harvest some rice, till some fields, weave some baskets, play in the dirt, I don't care!"

There was a sigh. Stomping. Then the slamming of a door.

Something fuzzy slithered onto the space above Jak's mouth. A strong smell struck him like a spiked mallet to the nose. The stench, one that conjured the image of a rotting carcass stewing in piss, jerked him into full consciousness. He tensed his body and pulled his head as far away as possible, only turning his head back when the source – thank the Precursors – was pulled away and he managed to stop gagging.

The room sharpened into harsh focus. Like he'd suspected, he was back home in their hut, but with himself as the patient on the cot this time. The windows facing the village were covered by sheets, patched with hurried seams and scraps of mismatched cloth. Ambersinge incense frothed smoke from brass burners on the sills.

An elderly man with a long white beard stood above. Jak was reminded of depictions he'd seen of the Precursors in tapestries; gods staring down at feeble mortals, faces twisting sour and angry as they decided that they were long overdue for a reminder of what wrath felt like.

Jak swallowed hard, then said, "H-hey, Samos."

Samos said nothing and pulled the drawstring of the bag holding the source of the terrible smell tight like a noose around its flimsy stalks. Jak recognized it as wakeroot, something so disgustingly pungent they used it for patients who'd fainted or slipped into unconsciousness during a healing. Samos slapped the bag onto the cotside table, then turned back to Jak, arms crossing.

"Look, before you say anything," Jak tried to get up so that he could fully face Samos, but found his arms and legs wouldn't budge. "What the…?"

He glanced up, then down at each. They were tied to the cot's edges with rope. He was tied.

"A safety precaution," Samos finally said. "But before I even think of untying you and letting you blurt out whatever stupid excuse you think I'll accept for all of this, I want you to know three things: one, I don't want to hear it, two, you're an idiot-"

"I'm glad I survived, too, Samos," Jak snapped back.

"-and three, you're damn well lucky Keira found you when she did, because you either would have bled out, or worse… the villagers could have found you and decided it was high time they sharpened their pitchforks."

Jak raised an eyebrow. The villagers disliked him, but he couldn't imagine them going that far. "What? Why would they have wanted to kill me?"

"Why are the ruins forbidden in the first place, Jak?"

He sighed. "Because it defiles the resting place and laws of the Precursors."

"And what happens when you defile the resting place and laws of the Precursors?"

"The gods come down and wreak vengeance upon us terrible mortals, cause the elderly to lose sight, babies to be born still, and… what was the last part?"

"Turn the crops to ash, Jak. They turn the crops to ash."

Jak rolled his eyes. "You and I both know you don't believe the Precursors would do all that."

"You're correct. I don't. But they do," he jabbed a thumb towards the door. "And right now, Keira is out there, trying to placate them by reassuring them that you were likely mauled by a wolfadger in the night and we couldn't find anything of you but a bloody shred of your shirt. Why do you think we smothered the windows and started burning ambersinge?"

Jak's jaw dropped and he stared at Samos for a long while.

Then, "You told them what?"

"Well, we couldn't very well let them know about that magical bruise on your chest, now, could we? Half of them already believed you were a demon's child. One look at that and they'd consider it proven."

"Magical bruise?"

Samos reached over and tugged free the bandages wrapped around Jak's chest. Layer by layer, a mark that looked like an ink spill across his heart was revealed. But it didn't feel raw or sensitive like any normal wound. It was numb and dead, as if someone had carved out his flesh there and instead planted a patch of cold space. He'd never seen anything like it before. How had he gotten it? He didn't remember…

Memories locked his mind's eye in a sharp grip. There were the brass walls, the alien blue lights, the robot, the chair, a needle, and pain. Then nothing. Then fleeing from a smoking, sparking room, a wet hand, and running – half-slipping – over hot blood and freezing metal.

Then light. Then darkness.

"I…" Jak finally choked out.

"Care to explain what exactly happened in those ruins?"

And so he did. Jak recalled every excruciating detail. Samos' glower threatened to turn into a frown as Jak continued, but it wasn't until Jak mentioned the strange eco that Samos' mouth fully gave in. Still, Samos listened as Jak finished, though he looked as if he was already drowning in too many of his own thoughts to pay much attention.

He curtly nodded as Jak finished his story. "So, it's done, then."

"Look, Samos, I know you told me…" Jak paused, guilt worming into his heart. "I know it was stupid to go there. I just wanted – needed – to know what was in the ruins. You can get mad at me later for breaking my promise all you want. I deserve it. Just untie me, and we can start trying to heal this thing."

Samos wouldn't return Jak's pleading stare.

"Samos, we can heal this, right?"

"Do you know what dark eco does to a person, Jak?"

So that's what it's called, Jak thought. Dark eco. But why does Samos know about it? And what is it, exactly?

He wanted Samos to continue, but wasn't sure he wanted the answer, either. The wound didn't feel dire. Just… empty. But here Samos was, acting like he was attending a funeral. He wondered for a fleeting moment if the ambersinge wasn't a ruse, after all.

"There's a reason you've never heard of it before. It's rare, and no sage with half a brain would even dare dabble in it."

"It's not like I meant to. I told you already: I got trapped and the room, or the voice, or Precursors… whatever it was, forced me. Now, are you going to free me, or not?"

"I'm not. And do you know why, Jak? Can you even begin to comprehend what you've done? What will happen to you!?"

Jak didn't answer, stunned.

Samos turned away, his voice quieting, "The effects will seem harmless, at first. You'll feel a little numb, perhaps. Then it will start to get worse. Worse, worse, and worse, spreading farther and farther like a sick, black vine that strangles everything in its wake. You'll begin to fear it."

"Fear it-?"

"Dark eco is volatile, Jak. That angry fit in the ruins wasn't an isolated case."

Jak froze. He remembered the way he'd given into that sudden rage. At the time, he'd thought it was some fluke of pure survival instinct, but now as he recalled the memory, he realized that it was the eco – not his own strength – that had pushed him over the edge. He'd left that room a sparking, smoking, ripped to little pieces mess, but he'd only broken a few machines. But what if it happened again? What if it turned him against something else? Someone else?

He suddenly understood the restraints. Though, he wasn't sure how much rope would help when the metal ones in the ruins had done nothing to stop him.

"And what triggers it?"

"Strong negative feelings. Fear. Rage. Pain. The more you give in, the more that mark will spread. And the more it spreads, the more you will give in. It's a never-ending cycle of fear and destruction. Then your mind will go. Then…"

"Then…? It can't go on forever?"

Samos said nothing.

The incense's furling smoke was the only thing that moved for the longest time. Jak felt his heartbeat as the thundering silence between meager thumps. Instead of breathing in, he felt like he was constantly breathing out, losing any air his lungs desperately tried to hold. Numbness was no longer contained within the black boundaries of the wound over his heart; his whole body was drunk with it.

Jak swallowed hard. "There's… there's gotta be some sort of cure? Some way I can stop it?"

More silence.

"Samos? Samos, please."

"I know of none. However, someone else might."

Jak let out the greatest breath of relief he'd ever held. "Oh, thank the Precursors! For a second there, I thought…"

He trailed off as Samos started towards the desk. Samos dug through tomes and yellowed parchment sheets, searching for something amongst the dusty pages.

"Now," Samos said suddenly, turning around with a large scroll in hand. "This should work well enough."

He let the scroll snap open. Line after wandering line of oceans, islands, rivers, and shores snaked through the paper. Jak recognized the most southern tip, on which the words "Sandover Village" balanced like a worm on a hook, but everything farther north than a town called Jadecrest – the next circle of civilization up from Sandover - was unfamiliar.

"Here is where you might find a cure."

Jak glanced up from Sandover's coast, trailed his eyes over basins, meadows, mountains, sea, steppe, marshes, wasteland, and a long bridge to a great city on an island that lay under Samos' finger.

"Haven City?" Jak said as he read its name. "How far away is that? And that's one of the northern cities, I can't go-"

"It's your only chance, Jak," Samos rolled the scroll back up and set it next to him. "And a slim one at that. If you happen to make it all the way, assuming animals, bandits, or slavers don't eat or kidnap you first, you must find two people: Gol and Maia Acheron. I don't know how long you have with that wound, but you should have at least a year left, maybe two. It takes two months to get there on foot."

If Jak still hadn't been tied down, he'd have held his face in his hands. Haven City? Gol and Maia Acherwhat? Bandits? Slavers? How many miles? Two months to get there? And two years to live… maybe?

Just yesterday, he'd been healing sickle wounds and gathering herbs. Today, he was being told he not only was likely going to die, but had to travel across an entire continent? And when he got there, there was a slim chance that there might be someone that could help?

Those weren't even the most troublesome questions Jak had.

"Samos?"

"Hmm?"

"Just how do you know all this? About dark eco? And this… Gol and Maia, was it?"

Samos turned his back to Jak once more and walked to the desk, tidying up the papers and tomes he'd tossed aside to find the map. In that moment, the man's frown softened, his hands ceased their sifting through the parchment sea, and his eyes glanced down, avoiding the sunlight that broke through a small tear in the sheet draping the window.

"Asking questions is what got you in this position in the first place. That I know is all you need to know… and feel lucky for."

"But-"

The door squealed open. Keira squeezed in, the sounds of chattering people dying as she shut it once more and leaned against the wood. She took a deep breath, fixed her messy bangs behind her ears, and looked up at Samos.

"Well, the masses have been placated."

"And what did you tell them?" Samos asked.

"The same. Wolfadger. Got mauled. Couldn't find the body. Still grieving, get back to work. Funeral's tomorrow at noon."

"That's my girl."

Keira gave a little smile, then turned to Jak. "Hey, glad you're not dead."

"Yeah. For now."

The morning passed into dreary afternoon, and dreary afternoon soon died to night. Samos had put Jak through some minor tests to see at what point the eco might trigger a rage, but none – not even when he'd pinched him, frightened him, nicked Jak's arm without warning, or annoyed him – had worked. However, the wound hurt a little after each, as if someone were rubbing a sunburn with sand. But he'd passed and so was freed from the cot and ropes.

Throughout the day, Keira kept an eye on the door and windows to make sure none of the villagers were peeking in. Samos gave Jak many things: a pack, food that would keep, a book on healing herbs that could be found in the wild far and wide, ointments, bandages, a dagger, and most importantly, advice.

"Stick to the roads, but camp further away from them at night. Hide your eco abilities when you get farther north; slavers prey on channelers. And remember the customs I taught you about the other tribes."

"Yes, Samos," Jak said while packing everything away that Samos had shoved into his arms. "I remember them."

"While you're in green tribal lands, lay low. You're supposed to be dead, remember? If anyone recognizes you, just tell them you're going to Riverjoint to buy some starblossom for me at the markets there," he handed Jak a brown, hooded cape and plain clothes. "Cut your hair short, cover your face with this, and wear these. That green tunic will make you stick out like a sore thumb."

"Samos?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ever come back? Even just to see you and Keira?"

He paused for a long while, then grabbed the map he'd shown Jak earlier and shoved it into the young man's hand. "You're dead to the village, Jak, remember?"

And dead he was. He lingered by the window in the hut's highest level at sunset, careful to only peek from behind the sheet. He felt like a ghost, torn from a world he'd just lived in yesterday. People in the village below were already preparing a funeral pyre like ants pulling sand to a mound, though when the stack of sticks and straw burned and blackened the next day, it would be purely symbolic. There was no body, just as Samos said. It would be leaving in the early morning with a fearful heartbeat and warm flesh.

At dinner, Samos couldn't stop the endless cascade of advice that tumbled from his mouth between bites. As Jak sat there, eating what was likely the last meal he'd ever have with the only family and friend he'd ever had, he secretly wished the man would hand him a better weapon instead of more knowledge. Or a hug. Or something to defend against the growing hopelessness in his heart.

Keira remained grimly silent, something Jak had never seen before. She wouldn't meet his eye, either, only weakly chewed her food, her gaze a dull green and stuck on the distant horizon.

They finished and slept, though Jak's was an uneasy, dreamless, segmented sleep. He kept waking up to find his hand clutching the dark eco mark, its center a weak flame. When he stirred for what felt like the hundredth time, he watched the sky through the pinpricks in the sheet covering his window. Dark purple. He'd need those shadows to sneak away before both the suns and villagers rose.

He dressed in the clothes and cloak Samos had given him, then made his bed as if he'd never touched it, looking around at his room as he did so. Would it change after he was gone? What would they do with the collection of pale seashells on his desk, or the scrolls painted with one-lined gulls over oceansides hanging on the walls? He supposed a new apprentice would replace them with their own belongings after he was gone. He hoped that whoever they were, they'd enjoy learning from Samos as much as he had.

Jak blinked the wetness from his eyes. It was his own Precursors-damned fault, and there was no sense tearing up over it. At least, that's what he told himself as he snatched up his pack and slowly, weakly shut his door behind him.

He slid down the hut's central ladder. Samos was snoring in his room. Jak almost knocked on the door, but stopped before his knuckles could strike the wood. Leaving Samos and Keira was hard enough. He didn't know if he could handle it if they were awake to see him off, his guilty face reflected in their eyes. Turning away felt like dragging anchors from his ankles. Head lowered, he left the hut, cursed the grass for being cold and wet beneath his feet, and yelped as someone yanked him back by his hood.

"Shh!" hushed the voice. "Do you want Samos to wake up?"

He twisted around to find Keira staring back. She took him by the hand and pulled him under the hut's stilts, around to a crevice in the cliff face. From the outside, it looked like a simple gash in the rock, but Jak knew of a passage further in. Keira ahead, they ducked and picked their way through the earth. She unbolted a small makeshift door at the end.

On the surface, Keira's workshop looked like a metal graveyard. Tools, scraps, screws, and brassbeetle parts were stuffed together in baskets, splayed on the central table, and piled in corners, all aglow beneath the hanging lanterns lit with blue flamefringe bugs. The true secret, however, lay beneath the floorboards that squeaked as Jak stumbled in. That was where she hid her secret projects; gadgets and little machines snuck in from Precursor ruins.

Keira said nothing as he glanced around, only grabbed a red bundle of cloth - and the small bronze object drowning in it - from her desk.

"Here," she said, extending both to Jak. "These are for you."

Jak set down his pack and took them. The red cloth was round like a silk loop. However, the patterns in it looked familiar, and when he rubbed a thumb over it, Jak instantly knew what it was.

"Is this…?"

Keira looked to the floor. "When Samos found out what had happened after I dragged you back, he took it and tried to burn it. I… salvaged what I could. And I thought, with what I've heard about how cold the northern cities can get, a cowl would be more useful, anyways. Try the sword, too."

"The sword?"

Keira grabbed the bronze object from him. She took a few steps back, held the object away from them, and pressed on a discreet button on its side. A blade extended from what he now realized was the handle. She handed it back over, and he weighed it in both palms. It was light and beautiful, its edge gleaming sharp, its length almost as long as he was tall.

"How did you even make this?"

"Modified brassbeetle arm. I thought, if they can cut through thick trunks, they might work well against… other things. I broke it into segments, made a handle out of an old Precursor pipe, loaded them in there on a pressure-released spring, made sure they were aligned to snap into one, then snap apart and spring back in when the button is pressed again. Simple enough. Only took me one night to make, too."

Jak's breath caught in his throat. He didn't know what to say, either to the fact that Samos had been that angry or that Keira had toiled all night to make the cowl and sword for him. He looked up at her with both gratefulness and concern. Bags lined her eyes, her smile was thin, and her hands – which she was now trying to tuck into her crossed arms – were covered with cuts and scrapes.

"Keira… I don't deserve these. You didn't have to-"

"I wanted to. Up north, their weapons are a lot better, but until then, that will keep you safe. Look, Jak, I know Samos is mad, but I don't blame you for going into that ruin. I would have done the same. And… I'm sorry about what happened."

He didn't realize he'd dropped both the cowl and sword until after he'd already drawn her into a hug and it clattered against the floor. He held her as tightly as he could, knowing she was the last shred of his old life he could hang onto before he'd be forced to let go. She squeezed him back and the fear eating away at him faded; a light turning the black shadows in his heart to dull grays. He remembered how glad he was for her. For all the adventures into the woods, late nights telling stories by the dying hearth, and silent gestures of comfort they'd shared whenever the other needed a shoulder to lean on.

For someone with a life as filled with ridicule and scorn as his, she'd been his refuge – his shield – against that storm. Even now when he was at his lowest, and possibly most dangerous, she was there, pushing the darkness away like she always had.

"What am I going to do without you?" Jak asked, pretending his eyes weren't growing wet again.

"You'll have to find some other sucker to serve as your common sense," she answered and they both chuckled.

They stayed that way for a while. Finally, as the echoes of gulls cawing beyond the passage filled her workshop, Keira drew herself free. He held onto her hands, channeled enough eco to heal her cuts, then achingly, reluctantly let go.

"Thanks," she said, picked up the sword and cowl he'd dropped, retracted the blade, handed it to him, wrapped the cowl around his neck, and wiped her eyes. "Now take your crap and get out of here, you big sap."

"Feisty to the end, aren't you?"

"You're not the only one that learned from Samos."

They laughed as they left the workshop, though their voices soon died in the dawn's stirring wind. The suns hadn't yet lanced the pale horizon. Jak turned to her and smiled.

"I'll come back if I can, you know?"

She smiled back. "I know."

"And tell Samos I'm sorry."

"He knows."

Jak nodded. "I suppose he does."

A silence grew between them, heavy, neither wanting the moment to end. Then, without a word, Jak nodded again and turned, throwing his hood up over his head. He wanted her to remember him as her grinning friend that could face her, not the broken stranger that now walked away, hiding his guilty frown and watery eyes in the shadow of a hood.

As he skirted the village's edge, he kept asking himself what he'd done, what he was doing, and what he was going to do. This journey didn't begin like they always did in the old myths. There was no heroic certainty, no dawning day lighting the path before him, and no gods watching with pride. There was only heart-thumping fear, a dark dirt road, and distant mountains like sharp, turned backs ahead. He passed all the huts with cautious care, then the little bridge he'd always fished from as a child, and shied away from the rice paddies at Sandover's farthest edge, their still waters too reflective.

Jak trudged on in silence for hours, training his focus on dampening the dread and burning in his chest. At noon, he settled on a beachside ridge some ways from Sandover. His sage's tunic and freshly cut hair fed a small fire beside him, green and gold withering in the orange, and he watched the smoke of a greater flame rise from the village he'd left behind.

He was now dead to everyone but himself.