Chapter Three
The stewards finish unknotting the bindings until the sides of the cages fall flat on the stone floor. When every one of them is liberated the children sit immobile inside, looking dully around, afraid of being set free.
“Come on, little ones,” says the old woman. “My name is Ezbeth. I’m going to help you. Come on, now.”
No one moves.
She kneels, her voice lilting. “I know you’re scared. It’s okay. That was a scary trip.” She frowns childishly. “It’s all over now. You’re safe. Don’t be shy, come on out.”
The stewards go from cage to cage, gently tugging on arms and legs, pulling the children out. Jack feels someone grab his upper arm and guide him from his foul smelling prison, his joints and thin muscles on fire, cramping as he tries to extend his body and stand up. He kneels shaking on the ground and a man places his hand gently on Jack’s bony back.
“You’re all right, there, boy. Take you’re time. You’re all right.”
Gradually they all manage it, taking slight steps like newborn fawn, glancing frantically around the room.
Braylon unfurls, steadying himself on the edge of his cage, and lunges at the nearest steward. His wasted body collapses and he is brutally thrust to the ground. A severe looking man with a square jaw straddles his back and digs his knees into his ribs.
“I wouldn’t do that, young man,” he says, his presence commanding. “We will lock you away and you won’t see daylight till this time next year.” He flashes militant eyes at the children. “Anyone else want to get violent with me?”
They shirk back and cling to the cold walls. He cautiously lifts his weight and stands, then offers Braylon a hand. Braylon looks contemptuously at the extended gesture while the tension chills the room. Slowly, he reaches up his hand and accepts the help.
“That’s good,” says the man. “If you can all learn some respect, we’ll get along fine here. Now, wasn’t that easy?”
Braylon stays silent.
“I said, wasn’t that easy?” he repeats, calmly and without malice.
“Yes,” Braylon whispers.
“Thank you, Nisaq.” Ezbeth sighs. “No more roughness, okay?” She looks around imploringly.
Lia shuffles up behind Jack and puts her arms around him.
“You killed that man?”
Jack only nods.
She looks at him with big scared eyes. “I wish you killed them all.” The words sound utterly surreal spoken from her delicate lips.
Ezbeth grabs Lia and guides her to the far side of the room while the stewards shepherd the children into two lines, boys and girls. Jack joins his line, standing by William and Aiden.
“Now listen,” says Ezbeth, “you must all be starving. The sooner you do as we say, the sooner you will be fed. Girls, you are going to follow me in just a moment, and boys, you will go with Nisaq. Do not speak, and do not touch anything. Your hands are filthy.”
She moves to a broad doorway, leading to a sconcelit corridor, and beckons the girls to follow. Haylen is at the front of the line and her feet slip nervously across the stone and begin to move her body toward the door. The female stewards go along as well, and Nisaq takes his place by the exit.
“All right, young men, follow me. Let’s get you cleaned.”
The hallway is a sheer cavern that extends off into hazy gloom in both directions. Dreary candlelight turns the pale sandstone a ruddy orange, illuminating ghostly the paintings and furs hung along the walls. Some of the paintings depict the blue-eyed man.
Jack glances to his left and sees the line of girls shambling away, following Ezbeth to some unknown destination within the monstrous structure. Nisaq leads the boys to the right and they follow without contest. Their path cuts left and they find themselves in an open space in the corner of the Temple. A small open door allows a shaft of pale blue light to cut through the dimness. A few of the boys silently consider making a run for it. None of them do.
They dogleg around a side hall and enter the murky and humid baths. A kettle boils above the mortared fireplace. A steward uses it to warm the bathwater in the low trough that stretches the length of the skinny chamber.
“Take those rags off of you,” orders Nisaq.
The numb and brain-addled boys peel off their rancid clothes, losing their balance and stumbling around, then throw them away in a basket on the floor. The boys cover themselves in embarrassment and the basket is taken away for torching.
Nisaq gives further instructions and they obey, spooning ladlefuls of water over their dirty and tired bodies. They scrub with cloths laid out on the wash trough and finally rinse with warm clean water, slicking off the last layer of grime and watching it swirl down and out of the baths.
“Good. This wasn’t so bad, was it?”
A few of the boys murmur soft responses. A steward gives them rough towels and they dry themselves.
“Follow me this way.”
Two long benches cling to the walls of the clothier’s chamber. Each boy receives a little bound bundle containing open shirts and simple rough pants. They need no command and quickly begin dressing themselves in the new attire.
“Form a line when you’re dressed and Railek will help you find boots that fit.”
As each new boy steps forward, Railek looks ponderingly at their feet and selects a pair of high-cut leather boots. The cleaned and clothed boys sit on the benches and lace up.
“Everyone stand, let me look at you.” Nisaq moves down the line, inspecting each one with businesslike acumen. “You are… one of the finest looking groups we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”
The boys shuffle and cast their eyes about.
“Hungry?”
They nod and murmur.
“Follow me.”
Nisaq guides them to the dining hall one level above and they snake around the wood beam partition that divides the room. Cozy torchlight glimmers, shining down on the tremendous banquet that has been laid out for them. The smell makes them delirious.
“Take as much as you want,” says Nisaq. “We want you to be strong for the ceremony tonight.”
Roasted meat, vegetables, and flatbread—all still steaming. Cautiously, they step forward and fill their plates, eyes wide and ravenous. Nisaq arranges them around a large redwood table and they sit frozen, staring vacantly at their food.
Jack drinks down a cup of water and the liquid sloshes in his empty stomach. He tests a small bite, wondering if this is just some vicious ploy to poison them all, or perhaps, more darkly, if they are being served some previous batch of stolen children. The meat is delicious, seared and salty. Venison. He takes another bite. His dormant stomach comes alive with hunger and he begins stuffing bite after bite into his mouth. Around him the other boys are doing the same.
Ezbeth appears at the entrance, leading the band of girls. They curve around the partition and enter the opposite side of the dining hall, scrubbed and wearing fresh clean dresses of simple linen, with little leather slippers on their feet. Ezbeth guides them through the same process and soon they are huddled over their plates, devouring every last scrap.
Ezbeth and Nisaq confer privately by the entrance.
“How are they?” she asks.
“Fine. A fine group.”
“Have you had any trouble from this one,” she says, pointing to Jack. “He may be violent.”
Nisaq breathes deeply, thinking. “He’s calm. I think he’ll come around. We’ll fix him if he doesn’t. And the girls?”
“They’re lovely.”
“Wonderful.”
Ezbeth takes the girls to a rough-hewn lodge, built off to the side of the amphitheatre, overlooking the bluffs, a temporary structure while the Temple dormitory is constructed. Stewards corral them inside like little ducklings while two sentries stand guard.
“Come in, girls, and see your new home,” sings Ezbeth. “You can each pick your own bed and start getting settled in.”
The girls take hesitant steps through the lodge, stealing cautious glances toward their captors. Ezbeth and the stewards smile and wave them forward. They choose their bunks and stand nervously by, awaiting further instruction. Lia picks one in the back corner, as far away from the door as she can get.
Jeneth stops in the middle of the room and turns to face Ezbeth.
“Why did you bring us here?” she asks, her voice cracking. “Who are you?”
A few of the girls shush here brusquely, fearful her questions might trigger another windfall of violence from the killers stationed at the door.
“It’s okay,” says Ezbeth, “What is your name, young lady?”
“Jeneth.”
“Jeneth, those questions and many others will be answered tonight at the welcoming ceremony. Right now, all you need to do is make yourself at home.”
“This isn’t my home.” Her voice is firmer now, stronger.
“Jeneth, shut up.”
The other girls step back instinctually and press their backs to the walls.
Ezbeth’s demeanor remains calm and cheerful.
“I know it doesn’t feel like your home now. But it will. That I can promise.” She strides to the door, turning back before she leaves. “You have some time to rest—use it. We’ll come for you shortly.”
Their captors exit and the girls can hear the bar being slid into place outside, locking them in. Silence falls on the lodge. The little wallflowers, as if drawn by magnetism, gather in the center and embrace each other wordlessly, their tender sobs the only communication any of them can manage for some time.
“Enjoy your quarters, boys. We worked hard to provide them.” Nisaq’s deep voice booms as he walks through the chamber, situated in the completed wing on the west side of the Temple. Narrow shafts cut through the sandstone reveal thin fragments of the outside world. “Take a bunk, whichever you like, they’re all the same. And probably more comfortable than what you’re used to sleeping on.”
The wide-eyed boys scatter around the room, staking tentative claims on the bunks.
“I think, with a little time, you’ll grow to like it here,” he says, letting his sparkling gaze dart about the room from face to terrified face. “For now, just relax. I’ll be back very soon.”
The door closes with a thud and they are locked inside.
Braylon is up first, coursing along the wall, peering out the thin vertical windows.
“We’re up high,” he says, “and I don’t think any of us could fit through these windows anyway.”
William furrows his brow. “What are you talking about?”
“Running. That’s what I’m talking about. Getting out of here.”
“They’ll kill us,” William says plainly. “You heard what he said to you back there. He’ll lock you up somewhere and kill you.”
Lathan starts crying again, begging for his parents through choked, ragged breaths. Jack puts his arm around him, and scrawny Lathan pushes him away and buries his face in the mattress.
Aiden chimes in. “William is right. There’s too many of them, we’re not strong enough. Besides, we can’t run and leave the girls.”
Braylon ponders this. He moves to the door and slides his hand along the doorjamb, squinting, trying to see through to the hallway. Cupping his hands, he puts his ear to the door and listens.
“I think they’re gone.”
“They’re not gone. They’re going to kill us.”
“They’re not going to kill us,” says Jack. Everyone turns and looks at him. “They would have done it by now… right? Why would they bring us all the way here just to kill us?”
William’s mind wheels with murderous conspiracy. “What if they kill us tonight at that ceremony they talked about?”
They look to Jack, who remains silent.
Aiden sinks to the floor and buries his head in his hands.
“So were just supposed to sit here,” Braylon spits, accusatory. “Sit here and wait for them to come back?”
“Where would we run?” asks Creston from the corner. “We don’t even know where we are. There’s nothing but forest. Does anyone even know how to get back to the village?”
Braylon swivels to face him. “The village is gone. It’s burned and gone, and so are our parents.”
His words cut deep and Creston withdraws, tears welling up all over again.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Braylon. Maybe we’ll have a chance to run, but this isn’t it.”
“Jack, what do you think?”
Jack works the puzzle in his mind, playing out different scenarios. None look promising. “I think our best chance is to do what they say. At least till we know what’s going on.”
“So none of you want to fight?”
The boys are shamefaced at this. Braylon glowers at them and kicks the edge of his bed, splintering the wood and knocking out one of the crosspieces. It flies across the room and chocks off the wall. The door bursts open immediately and Nisaq storms in, flanked by two warriors. He seizes Braylon and jerks him toward the door.
“Let me go.”
“I don’t like doing it this way. I warned you.” Nisaq shouts in his face, nose to nose. “You’ll go in the pit tonight and see how you like it. Would anyone like to join him?” He cocks his head around with wild eyes flaring.
There are no volunteers.
He passes Braylon rudely to the warriors, who grab his arms and whisk him from the room against his curses and protests.
“This was your first test and you’ve failed. Any more talk of escaping and you can join your friend. Have I made myself clear?”
The boys gawk at him, mortified.
“When I ask you a question I expect an answer. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes…” they mumble.
“Good.”
Nisaq pivots and leaves, slamming the door shut.
They plant themselves on their bunks and fixate on the door, beyond which they can hear the cries of their friend become a faint echo. They sit immobile and listen to each other breathe, afraid to even look at one another.
After an eternity, Nisaq returns and finds a room full of obedient boys. Bolts of anxiety ricochet through their guts as they see the cadre of warriors standing at attention in the corridor, a brilliant crimson stripe painted straight down the center of each one, like a holiday ribbon bisecting their heads and torsos. The sashes they wear no longer contain utensils of murder—they are decorative, embellished with bits of shiny ornate metal.
“Stand up.”
They obey.
“In just a moment you are going to follow me,” says Nisaq, his sonorous voice full of warmth and honey. “I expect you to carry yourselves with respect and dignity. I will show you where to sit, and you will sit there quietly. You will not speak unless you are spoken to. Do you understand this?”
“Yes," they say in unison.
A radiant smile spreads across Nisaq’s hard face. “Good. This way.”
The boys line up and follow him down the hallway, tensely aware that one of their brethren is missing. They spoke not a word since Braylon was ripped from the chamber, but the sick relief was palpable—relief that it was Braylon facing this unknown punishment and not themselves. Secretly, and not without guilt, some of them think he brought it upon himself anyway. The warriors spread out along the line and usher the boys through the winding Temple corridors to the amphitheatre, where they will finally meet the favorite son of this noble-blooded dynasty—King Arana Nezra the Second.
“Girls, it’s time,” chirps Ezbeth. She steps through the lodge, giving the children a last minute once-over. Their faces are puffy, but presentable. “Line up for me, just like you did before.”
The girls stand as if possessed and form an arrow straight line down the middle of the lodge and march outside. Streamers of gold and purple crisscross the sky as the evening sun sets over the ocean. The air is alive with frenetic excitement, the amphitheatre nearly full, row after row of toothy grins and glittering eyes stretching high up the side of the hill, and the gathered forms stomp their feet and cheer as the frightened children exit the lodge.
The certainty of impending doom sets upon each young girl, convinced that they will be painfully sacrificed, their throats slashed like their parents to satisfy the twisted pleasures of the bloodthirsty audience. Their feet want to resist but they are incapable. In dreamlike limbo their zombii walk carries them toward the stage, lambs to the slaughter, counting down the last moments of their mortal lives.
Nisaq walks toward them from the opposite direction, a train of cleaned and groomed boys following along. He meets Ezbeth in the middle and they instruct the children to sit, front row seats for the horrorshow, boys and girls separated by a center aisle. The crowd erupts.
Directly behind the benches, in lines of supreme precision, stand the warriors. Their ranks extend from one side of the stage to the other, and many rows deep, a legion of shaved and red-striped heads. Rigid, warlike postures give them a statuesque appearance, as though they are cut and sculpted from the very sandstone upon which they stand.
Beyond the last tier, situated almost at the crest of the hill, encircled by a ring of lush pines, rests the King’s Gallery.
Arana rises.
His multitude of followers stir in their seats as he descends the central aisle, each step spurring them further until the sound of thunderous stomping echoes off the hillsides. He has traded his simple attire for more stately wear, leather-trimmed and embroidered. His hands are unroughened. His face clings to boyhood. Deafening cheers compete with the roar of stomping feet as the young sovereign proceeds through the gridwork of warriors and steps upon the stage and faces them, blue eyes sparkling, a wide, white smile opening across his face.
“Tonight,” he begins, “we celebrate the proud return of our Temple Sons.”
The crowd rises to its feet and cries out.
“And their precious bounty…” He fans his hands out and gestures to the horrified children. This elicits another berserk outpouring and Arana moves to quiet them. “Brave children, who have made a long and difficult journey to be here with us. Some of you made that same hard journey yourselves.”
Whistles and calls ripple across the amphitheatre.
“These children will no longer endure the unspeakable suffering of the old ways.” Here he settles his piercing eyes directly on the children, down the row, looking intently through each of them. They are at once repulsed and mesmerized by his bizarre gaze. “I envy you the most. Your journey is only just beginning.”
The children stifle sobs and sit perfectly still.
“You have no need to be scared anymore, children. Ever again. You are safe. You are part of our family now.” He is beaming as he looks upon them, bursting with patriarchal pride. “I am your King. You will know me. Look around you—this is your family. These are your brothers and sisters.”
The children do as they are told, swiveling their heads around shyly and beholding the virtual sea of ecstatic faces spanning up the hillside.
“Sadly,” he says, his tone darkening, “we know that these are dangerous ventures. These brave Sons risk their lives when they leave our Temple… and sometimes they do not return.”
A hush falls over the amphitheatre.
“We lost a young man on this venture—a proud soldier named Vallen. I grieve for his parents, and for his brother.”
His gaze darts briefly to Jack, whose heart thunders. He shrinks in his seat under the weight of the hideous blue stare.
“His sacrifice was not wasted.” Arana shifts his demeanor again, pacing the stagefront like a prowling lynx. “There is a sickness in this land—a sickness passed down through the old ways, handed down from parent to child, through the forests and valleys and along the coast—there are people who perform dark rituals that celebrate the great destruction and invite its vengeful return. On the night of these children’s rescue, their people were honoring these old ways.”
Scattered grumbles.
“They worshipped Fire!”
Hysteria.
“And their sick rituals were cruelly acted out… by these innocent children.”
Disgust crescendos in the well-lathered crowd. Arana closes his eyes somberly.
“These children need your help letting go of what has passed, and accepting a new way into their hearts.”
Jack watches in stupefied awe. He doesn’t understand what any of this means.
“The world is ours. Our gift. And I will not allow the savagery of forest scum to ruin what we have built. I will not allow deadly rituals to plunge this world back into chaos. If they want Fire,” he shouts passionately, “then we will let them burn.”
The horde unleashes a belt of angry lust that puts their previous display to shame, set to rip the whole structure apart if the zeal does not diminish.
The young King hardens his visage and strides abruptly upstage and vanishes from view, while the pandemonium swells and echoes through the valley and antique ruins below.
What follows is a unique form of humiliation. The bashful children are pawed over and ogled at by their new family. Bright, sanguine faces ask questions that seem absurd under the circumstances. How old are you, little boy? What games do you like to play? What is your favorite food? The boys and girls give polite one-word answers to their queries and do their best to remain obedient. The strange people respond with smiles of amazement, as if their simple, terse answers are the most marvelous words ever spoken.
Smoke wafts from the chimney of the girls’ lodge and a sentry stands vigil just outside the door. The girls wear thin nightgowns and sit in a circle around the cobbled stone fireplace with Sena. She is a young woman herself, having barely left her teenage years behind.
“Did they hurt your family too?” asks Jeneth. She has taken to speaking for the group.
“This is my family. I was born here, I’ve always lived here.”
“But…” Jeneth ruminates over how exactly to phrase this. “You’re all so… nice. I don’t understand how… how you could kill people.”
Sena inhales sharply, a bit shocked. “That’s not really how we talk about it here. I know others who’ve been brought from away, and it takes them a while to understand it was for their own good. We don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing we want to do.”
“Our parents are dead because of you.”
“They’re not dead because of us. Their own actions caused this. You didn’t know any better. You didn’t know they were hurting you.”
“Our parents didn’t hurt us,” says Lia.
“Oh, honey, I don’t mean they caused you pain. They hurt you in here.” She points to her heart.
“What does that mean? You don’t even know them.”
“I know…” Sena gathers her thoughts carefully. “I’ve known of people like them. I know their rituals seemed harmless to you, but you’re too young to understand. They are an invitation to the spirits of Fire. They are very dangerous.”
Jeneth shakes her head, confused. “What rituals? What are you talking about?”
“You know what happened to the world, right? It burned. It burned because they were sick—because they wanted it to burn. And your people were sick, too. Did they want to see everything ruined this time? The whole world and everything in it?” Her voice waivers and she mists over with tears. “I have… two babies at home… and when I look a them… their little faces… I just want them to be safe…”
She puts her face in her hands, overtaken.
The girls sit in bewildered silence and watch nervously as Sena weeps long into the night.
“I was brought here when I was seven,” says Quinlan. The boys sit cross-legged on their bunks and listen. “I don’t remember much about my old family. We lived in a cave near the coast, somewhere north of here.”
“Did they burn your parents?” asks Aiden, far too simply, as if this were a normal question.
“Of course. They had no choice.”
“But why? Didn’t it hurt you?”
“I know I cried a lot at first. I understand, though. They were set in their ways. They wouldn’t fit in here. But I promise you, it gets easier. I have a good life here now. Better than I would have had living in a dirty cave.” Quinlan is looking at them, but not. There is something missing behind his eyes. “As for worrying about your old family, they were given to savagery and the sooner you put all that behind you the better. We’re civilized here.”
“Do we look like savages to you?” asks Jack.
Quinlan raises his eyebrows innocently. “You did when they brought you in.” Jack starts to form a reply to this absurdity and Quinlan cuts him off. “You can have a life so much happier than you would have had living like animals in the forest.”
“I was happy before,” says William, slumping his shoulders and staring at the floor.
“You’re going to be fine. It just takes time. Nisaq says it’s like training wild horses. It takes time and patience, and sometimes it seems cruel, but in the end they’re a lot better off.”
This peculiar analogy evades the boys and they say nothing.
“Well,” says Quinlan, scooting to the edge of his bunk, “I think it’s time to get some sleep.”
He moves around the chamber and extinguishes the sconces, plunging them into darkness.
The whole night has seemed like a prolonged hallucination. Jack curls up on his mattress, worn to the core from the evening’s bizarre convocation. As he lies there gazing at the ceiling, he falls asleep. Deeply.
He dreams.
He is back in his village, flames rising around him. He sees his mother at the end of the promenade and she is shimmering. His father is standing behind her, his face blurred, a veiled memory from his early childhood. He walks toward his mother but she does not get any closer. She looks so warm and comforting, such safe refuge, and Jack runs to her. As he runs the promenade stretches impossibly below his feet, new stones appearing out of thin air and widening the chasm that separates them. He runs harder and faster, and the stone avenue stretches farther and wider until his mother is just a speck on the horizon, shimmering and flickering like some mystical apparition. Suddenly the concourse shrinks and Jack is rocketing toward her at breakneck speed, the light twinkle of her hazel eyes, her beautiful soft face coming into view, closer and closer. Just as he should reach her, just as he is extending his arms and anticipating her tight embrace, he jerks rigidly awake, drenched in cold sweat. He looks around at his dormitory and lies flatly back on his mattress, tears bursting from the corners of his eyes, realizing with dread that he has only traded one nightmare for another.