The Calm Before the Storm
Time passed. It passed in an endless round of maddening waiting, with nothing good to hope for at the end of it. Every evening, Divine escorted them down to the steel room to open doors for him, and then escorted them back when he was finished with them. Other than that, they had very little to occupy their time, and the boredom weighed heavily on all of them. It was possible that Divine had meant it when he said he wasn't cruel. Anything they wanted - food, books, games, spare blankets, new clothes, crafting materials - was theirs for the asking, so long as it wasn't deemed to be dangerous or something that they could use to contact the outside world. For two hours every day, the guards marched them into what resembled a small gymnasium, with some exercise equipment and a track for running on, so that they could have a chance to stretch their legs. Every day, Jack worked himself to exhaustion, hoping that it would make the enforced idleness that came afterwards easier to bear. There was very little conversation; everyone was tired of each other's company, but the idea of being separated was worse. Yusei, Bruno, and Carly were still holding up fairly well, being used to confinement, but the others were clearly nearing the end of their patience. Jack, who was accustomed to constant roving, felt as though he were being slowly stifled to death. If this went on much longer, he would snap and start throwing himself at the door and howling like an animal.
He was thinking those sorts of gloomy thoughts while he watched the rest of the group going through the motions of their day. Carly had talked the guard into giving her some knitting needles and some chunky green yarn, and was enmeshed in making something lumpy that may have had aspirations towards being a sweater. Yusei and Bruno were huddled together on a sofa, alternating between reading and dozing. Crow, Rua, and Ruka were sitting on the floor together playing a board game, while Kiryu watched with an expression that said he was doing so because there was nothing else to look at.
"I wonder what Professor LeBlanc and his daughter are doing now," said Yusei into the silence.
"I dunno," said Crow. "Same thing we are, I guess - hiding underground. They said they had a safe house to duck into, right?"
"Maybe they got sucked up by the storm," said Kiryu.
"Don't say that," said Bruno.
"Well, they might have," said Kiryu. "Maybe it's for the best. The Yliasters wouldn't be able to get them on the other side, right?"
"Maybe they'll run into our parents," said Rua. "I'll bet they'd like to have some more human friends over there."
"Maybe you're right," said Yusei reassuringly. "If the professor and his daughter made it to the other side, I bet that's where they are."
At that moment, Kuribon caused a mild disturbance. She had been watching Carly's attempts at knitting (and the attendant muttered swearwords) with rapt fascination, and had gotten her tail tangled in the yarn. She let out a squeak and began to thrash, but only managed to entangle herself more thoroughly.
"I've got you! Hold still!" Carly exclaimed. She attempted to grasp the creature, but it slipped through her hands. "How do you hold on to this thing? It's nothing but fur and eyes!"
"I'll get her," said Ruka, scrambling to her feet. She managed to catch the little monster and calm her down. "There, there, it's all right. Come over here and sit with us for a while..."
Kuribon responded by wiggling free of Ruka's arms and bouncing back onto the arm of Carly's chair, apparently undaunted by her misadventure. Carly sighed.
"Well, at least we got her free," she said.
"At least someone around here is getting free," Kiryu muttered.
Jack felt a sudden stirring in the back of his mind. He stared very hard at the Kuribon, waiting for the thought to come clear. It was something about Kuribon, about getting free, and about Rua and Ruka's parents...
He sat up with a jolt. "I have it!"
Everyone looked at him.
"Have what?" asked Crow.
"I know how we're getting out of here," said Jack.
"Well, tell us!" said Bruno. "I'm all ears."
"We're going through the door," he said triumphantly.
Rua looked at the door. "How are you going to get it unlocked?"
"Not that door," said Jack impatiently. "The door. The one we have to keep opening every night. The one to the other world."
"That's crazy!" said Crow. "We'll all be killed."
"No, wait, I think he's on to something," said Yusei. "It's the only time we're left unguarded. Divine always goes up to his control room for a few minutes before the machines start, and there are no other guards watching us. If we could just get free of the cage, somehow..."
"And it's the one place the Yliasters can't get to us," Bruno finished.
Crow frowned. "But if we go there, we might not ever find a way to get out again."
"If we stay here, we'll definitely never get out again," said Kiryu. "If it's a choice between the monsters and the Goodwins, I'll take monsters."
"You're probably right," said Crow. "It's just a weird thought, walking away from everything forever."
Jack shrugged. "Better than dying."
"If there's a way in," said Yusei, "there's got to be a way out, too. The monsters get out all the time, after all. If there's a way, we'll find it sooner or later."
"Right," said Bruno. "Let's get out of here first, and then worry about the rest."
"How are you going to get the cage open?" Carly asked.
Jack looked away. "I'm still thinking about that part. Maybe if we had some way to wedge the bars to keep them from going all the way down..."
"No, don't worry about it," said Crow. "I think I have a better idea..."
That afternoon, when the guards came to pick the group up and take them for their daily exercises, they found that Crow was wearing the lumpy green sweater Carly had been knitting.
"What are you wearing that for?" one of the guards asked. "It's not cold down here."
"I'm used to driving in the desert, in hundred degree heat, wearing motorcycle leathers," Crow answered, as though the guard were an idiot. "It feels pretty cool down here to me."
The guard glared at him, but he couldn't seem to think of any reason why Crow couldn't wear an ugly sweater if he wanted to. He let the matter drop.
"I think these guys are going stir-crazy," he muttered to his companion.
Once they reached the gymnasium, the guards stared at the group a little more suspiciously than usual, but no one did anything out of the ordinary. Crow and Carly found a pair of long skipping ropes and invited Rua and Ruka to take turns jumping over them, while the rest of the group raced each other around the track or worked out on the exercise machines. It was all very peaceful. The only excitement was that at the end of their session, when they were supposed to put away their toys and line up to leave, Jack and Kiryu contrived to have an argument that turned into a scuffle, and Yusei and Bruno made matters worse by diving in and trying to separate them. The guards eventually had to intervene, shoving them roughly apart. Jack was cuffed on the side of the head hard enough to make him see stars, but he endured it without more than a token grumble. The important thing was that while he and the other men were roughhousing, Crow was busy winding up the skipping ropes and hiding them under his bulky sweater. By the time everyone had settled down, the ropes were out of sight, and everyone obediently fell into line and marched back to their room.
That evening, they were once again taken to the metal chamber where the doors were summoned. Aki maintained her usual cool demeanor while she nudged everyone behind the lines. However, once Divine and the guards had gone off in their own directions, she said, "We've had word from Goodwin. He'll be here tomorrow morning. Things aren't looking good for you."
"That's okay," said Crow. "We're busting out of here today."
She gave him a shocked look, and then quickly composed herself, with a guilty glance towards Divine's control room.
"You can come too, if you want," Ruka offered.
"We're going to look for our parents!" Rua chimed in.
"Oh, no, I..." said Aki, before realization flashed across her face. "You're going where?"
"Prepare for opening," said Divine's voice over the loudspeaker. "Five... four... three..."
There was a scramble of activity among the group. Crow swiftly fished the skipping ropes, now knotted together, from under his sweater. Ruka took them and looped one end around her wrist, then tied the other to Kuribon's foot.
"Be careful out there," she whispered. She gave the creature a quick hug before shoving her at the grating.
Kuribon seemed to know exactly what to do. The open spaces in the grating were no more than eight inches square. Even a child would not have been able to crawl through them, but Kuribon squeezed through them without difficulty and began bounding across the room.
The wind began to pick up. Kuribon's fur streamed sideways in the breeze, but she continued hopping determinedly forwards. Jack felt the by-now-familiar tug at his insides that meant the door was beginning to open. The air in the room began to ripple.
"What is that creature doing down there?" Divine shouted. "Get it out of the way!"
No one did anything. Kuribon reached the other side of the room and made a jump at the control panel, but missed. The wind caught her in mid-jump and began pulling her through the air like a kite caught in a breeze. It gave a little squeak of fright, and Ruka began hauling on the rope to pull her back to earth. Kuribon touched down on the floor and gathered herself up to try again.
"No! Get away from that!" Divine shouted, but there was nothing he could do. The gate was nearly open now, and he couldn't risk leaving the safety of his control room to go after the troublemaking monster.
Kuribon made a second jump, and this time, she managed to hit the button. The grating began to rise, and Ruka hastily reeled in the jump rope, hauling Kuribon back into her arms. She settled there with a happy chirp. In that same instant, the door snapped open.
"Everyone in! Go!" Jack snapped. Rua and Ruka dived eagerly through the door, with Yusei and Bruno hot on their heels. Crow and Kiryu followed next. Jack grabbed Carly's hand and began dragging her towards the opening. As he ran, he glanced back at Aki.
"Are you coming or not?" he demanded.
She hesitated. Her eyes turned longingly towards the portal, and then just as longingly up at Divine's control room.
"I... I don't..." she began.
"Fine, then, stay here and deal with it," said Jack, and turned to begin running again.
"Wait, I'm coming!" Aki shouted. He heard her footsteps ringing on the metal floor behind him. He felt a brief flare of satisfaction that she was taking the reasonable course. Then he had no more time to think about it, because he was passing through the portal, and he stumbled as gravity shifted direction a tiny bit. Carly's hand was nearly pulled from his, and he gripped so hard it must have hurt her, but she followed him without complaint. A moment later, a rustling sound alerted him to the arrival of Aki. Then there was an almost inaudible whuff, and he turned around to see that the portal was gone.
They were standing in the grass of another world.
"Is everybody all right?" asked Yusei.
The others began pulling themselves together. Several of them had stumbled on the way through, and were now brushing grass off their clothing.
"Fine, I think," said Crow. "Man, that was weird."
"At least we're all together," said Carly hopefully.
Jack looked around, taking stock. She was right that they didn't seem to have lost anyone. Aki was still looking somewhat shell-shocked, staring at the place where the portal had been as if hoping it would reopen and let her turn back, and the twins looked nearly as stunned, but at least no one had been dropped alone in some other corner of the wilderness.
They seemed to be standing at the top of a small rise in a hilly landscape - the edge of a valley surrounded by rolling mountains. This area was covered in soft green grass, but that only extended a short distance before it gave way to scrub and trees. The sky was dazzling blue, so bright that it hurt his eyes a little to look at it too long. Jack wished for sunglasses.
"Where do we go now?" Kiryu asked. He raised an eyebrow in a sarcastic manner that suggested he doubted anyone had a better idea than he did.
"Away," said Bruno firmly. "We don't know that he won't have some way of opening that door again and hauling us all back."
"No," said Aki, shaking her head. "He doesn't have a way. He used our strength to open the door, and with us gone..."
"Great, one problem solved," said Crow. "Now all we have to deal with is figuring out what to do now that we're in an alien world full of monsters, with no shelter or supplies. Piece of cake."
"Your sarcasm isn't helping anything," said Jack.
An argument might have broken out at that point, had something not come along to distract them. "Something" was the appropriate word: it was a humanoid, about four feet tall but solidly built, with green skin and yellow tusks. It was wearing heavy leather boots and a shaggy fur tunic, and it carried a lumpy sack over one shoulder. In the other hand, it carried a crossbow. There was blood on the sack. It looked fresh.
"Gwah!" Rua shouted, as he caught sight of it. "What the heck is that?"
The creature had seen them, too. It stopped in its tracks and gabbled something in a peculiar grunting tongue that seemed to consist mainly of G's and N's.
"Uh, sorry," said Crow. "We, uh, we don't speak..."
"He says not to be afraid," said Ruka. "He says he isn't going to hurt us."
"How do you know that?" her brother asked accusingly.
"I don't know. I just do," she answered.
"If he's not going to hurt us, what's that all about?" asked Kiryu, waving to indicate the bow and the sack.
The creature gabbled at them and Ruka translated, "He says it's his dinner. He was out hunting for... I'm sorry, I don't know that word... he was hunting animals to eat. He wasn't looking for us."
"So what's he going to do with us now that he's found us?" asked Carly. "Do you think he could maybe help us out a little?"
The creature turned his head to listen to her, and jabbered something in reply.
"He says he knows someone who speaks our language," Ruka said, "and if we follow him, he'll take us there. He says he was going that way anyway so it's no trouble. He's really very polite."
"Wait," said Bruno, "he understands what we're saying?"
The creature nodded. It grunted some more, making exaggerated motions with its jaws and sticking out its tongue. A few people backed away in alarm, but Ruka giggled.
"He says he understands us just fine, but his throat and tongue and things aren't shaped right for talking like we do. He could try, but we still wouldn't understand him. Also, he says his name is Guggul." She smiled at him. "Hi, Guggul. My name's Ruka."
"Rugguh," Guggul repeated.
She giggled again. "See what I mean?"
"Well, thanks, Guggul," said Yusei. "We certainly can use all the help we can get."
Guggul nodded eagerly and hurried a few yards away, gesturing for them to follow. The others looked at each other and shrugged, but apparently no one could think of any better ideas. They followed.
The scenery they covered was as different from the world Jack knew as he could imagine. As long as he had lived, all he had known was pavement, sand, rocks, and the occasional brief glimpse into a farming colony. Even there, plants grew in tidy patches and neat rows. Here, the plants were wild, and they were everywhere. The grass was a pleasantly soft cushion beneath his feet, and it gave off an herbal scent as they walked through it. Then they reached the tree line, and Jack looked around with interest as they passed beneath its shadows. He had never actually seen a forest, except in pictures. It was beautiful, in its way, but he couldn't help finding it a little eerie, too. A green light filtered down through the leaves, but there was very little undergrowth, leaving nothing to break up the scenery but the endless ranks of tree trunks. It gave a sense of great openness, but also of infinite places for something to hide. He felt more unprotected than he ever had out in the desert.
Eventually, though, the trees thinned again, and they came to the edge of what was indisputably a farm. It was full of rows of drab-looking plants, which despite their unprepossessing appearance were being lovingly tended by dozens of farmers. Some of them looked even less human than Guggul, and some of them... in fact, Jack realized, most of them... actually were human. None of them seemed to find anything peculiar about the newcomers, but a few of them apparently recognized Guggul and waved to him as he went by.
Beyond the fields was a town. It wasn't much more than two intersecting roads with some sort of village square in the middle; there was a well there, and what looked like a bonfire pit. Most of the buildings were little more than wooden huts with thatched roofs, though they looked well-tended and even comfortable. Some of them had clotheslines full of clothes flapping in the wind; some had been ornamented with brightly colored cloth banners or had flowers planted around the doors. Children played in the streets while mothers chatted with each other and kept watch over their broods. A smell of something roasting hung in the air, unfamiliar but tantalizing. Jack relaxed a fraction. This place might be strange, but there was nothing menacing about it.
On either side of the village square were two buildings that were larger and more ornate than the others. One had a sharply peaked roof with a bell tower on top - possibly some sort of shrine. The other was simply a particularly grand house, if only in comparison to the others, with two stories and double doors in front. Guggul marched confidently up to it and battered on the door with a fist.
The door was opened by a tall man. He was dressed in simple clothing of what looked like undyed linen, but he wore a circlet of intricately carved wood on his head and a medallion on a leather strap around his neck, both of which suggested that he was probably the one in charge here. He was humanoid in appearance, but his skin had a silvery cast to it, like pale wood by moonlight, and his hair was pure gold. The tips of his ears rose to points. Beside him was a woman whose ears were equally pointed, but her skin had a bluish tint, and her hair was the color of the ocean. She had feathery wings, which were also blue.
"Ah, hello, Guggul," said the man. "I see you've found some new refugees for us. Thank you for bringing them here. Tell the people at the brewhouse that I said you could have a mug of teyva on me."
Guggul nodded, clearly pleased at the prospect of teyva, whatever that was. He hurried off with his sack thumping against his back. The pale man turned to survey his guests.
"Welcome to our village," he said. "My name is Rill. I am the headman here. This is my wife, Merina."
"Hi," said Crow. "Sorry to drop in on you like this, but..."
Rill waved the apology away. "No need to say anything. This is a village of refugees. Something like three quarters of the people living here are human. When the storm takes them anywhere in this area, our friends bring them here."
"The others here are volunteers," Merina elaborated. "We come here to teach your kind what you need to know to survive in this world."
"So there are others here?" asked Rua eagerly. "Do you think my mom and dad are here?"
"I can't make any promises," said Rill. "But if they're here, they'll be either in the teyva fields or in the roasting houses. Anyone will be able to tell you where to look."
"Come on, Ruka, let's go!" Rua shouted. He grabbed his hand and raced off in the direction of the farms.
"What about you all?" asked Rill, turning to the rest of the group. "How did you find your way here? I hadn't heard that there had been any storms today."
"We didn't come from a storm," said Crow.
Rill and Merina exchanged worried looks.
"How did you get here, then, if we may ask?" said Merina.
"Through the door," said Aki softly. "The one people keep bringing things to our world through."
Rill frowned. "They sent you through?"
"No," said Jack. "We escaped."
"They were keeping us prisoner," Carly elaborated, "and they forced us to hold doors open for them, so we jumped through the door and got out."
"So who will be opening the doors now?" asked Merina. There was a note of caution in her voice.
Kiryu shrugged. "No one, as far as we know."
"Yeah, you won't have to worry about that guy asking for stuff from you anymore," said Crow.
A look of worry passed between Merina and Rill, and was quickly suppressed.
"It wasn't only us he made demands upon," said Rill gravely. "Our village grows mainly teyva, which did not seem to have much interest in. We tried to offer it to him once, but he turned it away."
"It's not native to our world," said Yusei. "He would have been in trouble if anyone realized he was taking things from another world."
"I see," said Rill, in a tone that suggested that he didn't, but was prepared to take their word for it. "As it stands, I do not blame you for wanting to escape if you were being held against your will. This town is meant as refuge for all who are lost in this world, regardless of how they arrived here. As long as you are willing to contribute to the community, you are welcome to stay here as long as you need to."
"What counts as contributing?" asked Crow.
"That depends on what you're good at," said Merina. "You can worry about that later. For now, you should be getting settled in. We have empty houses at the edge of town for newcomers, but they don't have anything in them yet. I'm sure we can find something for you, though... That is, if you're really planning on staying."
From somewhere just out of sight, a shriek of delight rose up. Someone - two someones, in fact - was shouting "Mama! Papa!"
"I think we're staying," said Jack.
Night was falling over the fields. One by one, the laborers set aside their tools and began loading the last few bushels of vegetables onto their carts. Jack stood up and stretched slowly, aching from being bent over his work for so long, and tossed his gloves into the basket of weeds next to him. He hefted the basket onto his shoulder and joined the line of other workers on the way to the compost heap. Stars were already coming out above the ridge of the mountains, and he looked at them rather than the earth as he walked.
He was surprised at how well he and his companions had settled into life in the village. It turned out that most of the residents were couriers like himself - men and women who had been caught out by the storms and pulled into this world, and had decided to end their wandering in this peaceful place. Some of them had even married locals, and didn't seem to mind that their children had wings or fur or blue skin. A lot of them even knew him, by reputation if not in person. They welcomed him as one of their own.
The others, too, were settling into their own niches. The twins, of course, spent most of their time glued to their parents, but they also went with the other local children to the village schoolhouse and had already made friends among their peers. Carly was taking lessons, too. Jack wasn't sure exactly what she was supposed to be learning, but when she wasn't doing various chores, she was at the temple talking to a gaggle of fairies who had taken her under their collective wings. Whatever they were telling her, she seemed to find it absolutely fascinating. Whenever she mentioned her teachers, it was with an air of reverence.
Yusei and Bruno, meanwhile, had made themselves valued members of the community by proving they had a sound knowledge of all things mechanical. The village itself was an odd blend of simplicity and technology, as though futuristic time travelers had come back in time, left a few machines as gifts, and then vanished without telling anyone how any of it worked. There was a generator at the far side of town, powered by a waterfall and some turbines, that supplied enough electricity for a few houses to have electric lights or even computers. These had been traded for from other, more advanced cities, and not many people understood how to maintain them. The arrival of two men who could not only make repairs but make improvements was heralded as a veritable godsend. When they weren't working on the generator or various other mechanical things, the two of them commandeered a computer and began the laborious process of working through all of LeBlanc's research. That part was all above Jack's head, but he gathered that there were some gaps in the great man's figures that were bothering them, and they were wracking their brains trying to figure it out.
But most of life in the village revolved around the teyva plants. They were labor intensive, requiring a constant round of pruning, weeding, harvesting, and re-seeding. Once that was done, the roots of the plant were carried to the roasting houses, where they were peeled, sliced, roasted, and finally ground into a fine powder. Every able-bodied person in the village was expected to contribute to the work in some way. That was how Jack, Crow, and Kiryu, having no other particular skills to contribute, were put on full-time field work.
Jack found he didn't really mind. After days of being incarcerated in a small room, having something to do all day that actually needed doing was a pleasure. He was learning to enjoy the feel of the sunlight and the wind on his skin, and the scent of the earth as he tended the plants. Given enough time, wanderlust might have eventually taken hold of him, but for now, he was content to be doing what he was doing. For the first time in his life, he was a part of a community, valued for his service if not his personality, accepted as one of the group. He was getting used to it.
He lugged his basket of weeds to the compost pile at the far side of the village, located well downwind of the housing. After he'd emptied the basket, he began carrying it back to the shed. As he did, he was intercepted by Carly, who was carrying two mugs of something that steamed. He perked up immediately and hurried over to join her.
"Tell me that is what I think it is," he said.
She smiled. "The fruits of your labors. I figure you've probably earned it by now."
He took the mug and drank gratefully. The whole reason why teyva plants were tolerated was because the powder made from their roots, when whisked into hot water, created a rich, creamy drink that tasted somewhere between coffee and dark chocolate - a little bitter, a little sweet, and utterly soul-satisfying. The locals claimed that it was highly nutritious, and a cure for everything from insomnia to indigestion to impotency. Jack had yet to test any of these theories, but he wasn't about to deny that the stuff was delicious.
"Did you do anything useful today while I was out sweating in the fields?" he asked, as he fell in step alongside her.
"Oh, you know, the usual," she said. "Did some laundry, did some cooking, helped out at the roasting house a little, hung out at the temple."
"How come you don't have to work in the fields?" Jack asked. "You came from a farm colony. You should know how."
"I know how," she said. "But the fairies say it's more important for me to be learning from them. I can work in fields after I've finished what I'm doing with them."
"So what are you doing?" he asked.
"Learning," she said. "They're teaching me things about this world. The history, the geography, mythology..."
"That's important?" Jack asked.
"It seems pretty important to me," said Carly. "They say if I had been born in this village, they would have brought me up to be a bard."
"A bard?" he repeated, eyebrow raised. "Aren't they supposed to be musical?"
She blushed a little. "Some of them are. They said they would have taught me to play an instrument or something, if I'd come here young enough, but that's not the really important part. The important part is knowing the stories and carrying the news to people, and then staying wherever you are long enough to learn what they know so you can take it to someplace else."
"It sounds a lot like what you were doing before," said Jack.
"It is," she agreed, "but I'd get to move around more."
"Planning on going somewhere?" he asked.
"Are you kidding? I barely know what's over the next hill," she said. "Maybe someday we'll both go. You know you aren't going to be happy here digging for roots all your life."
"It's not so bad," said Jack.
They were walking towards the village square. In the evenings, a lot of the villagers would gather around the bonfire pit. Jack had heard that on festival nights, they would have real bonfires there, but on ordinary nights like this, the flames were kept to a moderate size. Instead, sometime around midday, someone would hang a large cauldron over the fire and fill it with water, so that by evening it would be simmering nicely. They would add a few scoops of teyva powder to the brew just as the sun was setting, so that the tired workers could gather around and fill their mugs with a freshly brewed drink. Then they would sit around the fire, telling stories, singing songs, and generally having a good time. Some nights Jack would join them, if he happened to be feeling sociable. Tonight, though, felt like a night to be quiet. When he started veering off the main path and towards the woods, she didn't argue. Instead, she slipped her hand into his and let him guide her into the shadows.
"You really don't like having a lot of people around, do you?" she asked. "I thought it might just be that you were tired of having to go everywhere with the rest of us, but you really just like being alone."
"I'm used to it," he said. "Anyway, I like some people some of the time. I just don't want to deal with them all at once."
She laughed. "Are you telling me to go away?"
"Of course not. I brought you, didn't I?"
"You might have just been being nice."
"I'm never nice," he said, and she laughed again.
"You are. You just don't want to admit it," she said.
He decided to change the subject.
"How is Aki doing? I hardly ever see her," he said.
Carly frowned a little. "She's doing better. She's been under that Divine guy's thumb so long, she hardly knows how to think for herself anymore. The priestess is working with her, but it's slow."
"Aren't they teaching her magic or something in there?" he asked dubiously. He had always believed, like any right-thinking person, that magic was either wishful thinking or a form of trickery, depending on who was doing the talking. The fact that people around here not only took it for granted as being real, but used it on a regular basis, was something he wasn't yet comfortable thinking about.
"They're teaching her that, too," said Carly. "Like I said, it's slow going. She still feels guilty about running off and leaving Divine in the lurch. I don't know why. He deserves it. But she feels like she should have done something more to help him, and it's blocking her from getting anything else done." She considered. "Sometimes I can get her to tell me about what she's learned, though. I don't think she minds so much if she thinks she's learning it for someone else."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Are you planning on learning magic, too?"
"Well, it's interesting," she said, a bit sheepishly. "I don't really have the knack for it, though. But one of the fairies says she can teach me to tell fortunes. Wouldn't that be something, to be able to find things out before they happen? I'd be the best newscaster in the world if I could do that."
"Are you thinking about going back, then?" he asked.
"Well, yeah," she answered, a bit defensively. "Don't you think about going home?"
"I never had a home," said Jack. "I stayed longer in Divine's stupid dungeon than I've stayed in any of the colonies since the day I became a courier. This place feels as much like home as anyplace back there."
Carly gave him a dubious look. "You wouldn't really stay here."
"Why not?" he asked.
She stopped to fold her arms and glare at him. "Don't play that with me, Jack Atlas. I know you better. You'd never be happy as a farmer. You'd get bored and wander off somewhere."
Jack grimaced but didn't contradict her. There were moments when he told himself he was happy here. This was a good place. There was something satisfying about doing honest labor in the fields and then enjoying the fruits of those labors. He liked the camaraderie of the village, the way so many different types of people were able to live together and get along despite their differences, and the way they'd unquestioningly accepted him as one of their own. From time to time, he'd catch himself fantasizing about staying here, marrying Carly, and watching his children grow up alongside the people with fur or feathers or blue skin. Wouldn't it be better here, where there was no famine or want, and no colony walls or clouds of dust to blot out the sky?
Rill had told him that most of the couriers who had landed here over the years hadn't stayed. They lingered for a few days or weeks or even a year or two, and then they packed up their things and went. His kind wasn't meant to stand still.
"So I'll go somewhere," he said. "That doesn't mean I want to go back there. The minute I show my face in our own world, I'm a dead man. I can never go back to my old job again. There's no future left for me there. Besides, how am I supposed to get back? You don't see one of Divine's fancy machines around here, do you?"
Carly frowned at him for a moment. Then she sighed.
"I guess you're right," she said. "It just feels like... like giving up, you know? It's like letting the bad guys win."
"What were we ever going to do to them?" Jack muttered. "Walk up to them and ask them nicely to stop? It's better this way."
"I guess," she said again. "Still..."
She didn't finish the sentence, and he didn't try to make her. He didn't really want to know. There wasn't any way to go back, so there was no use worrying about it.
He sighed quietly. He didn't like giving up.
To Be Continued...