AS ISAIAH TOLD his capturers about the first encounter with his late master, none of them uttered as much as a word. Other than Dove, shaking his head as he explained how Tzelem’s character had drastically changed as they’d ridden to the fortress, they hardly moved at all. It was only when finishing his tale, their questions surfaced. Not of Tzelem, rather, they were eager to hear of his experiences from the fortress. Amongst guardians, it was better known as “Camp Huxley”, and though familiar with it, it was not within their domain of authority. Isaiah told them there was not much to say, and that for men like them, it would probably be a very dull place both to be and hear about. Still, they wouldn’t leave him or the matter to rest, and so he told them he’d been treated fairly well, which was the truth. He didn’t say exactly how well, again remembering, that even if Tzelem might have lied to protect himself, it didn’t need to mean the guardians were necessarily well intended.
“Is the Sheppard still in good health?” Dove asked.
“We don’t have sheep.”
“Ait, but you know the Sheppard?”
“I don’t...”
“Lord Huxley – Sulley Huxley.”
“He’s been dead for… many years, it’s his son who’s Patron now.” Dove looked over at the Zura, who’s large, dark eyes seemed to jump from surprise to composure before he asked, “Did you happen to meet a man named Khair?”
“Yes.” Isaiah said without thinking, and both of them nodded and went silent again. It seemed then, that the triplet had been a guardian once, and considering their somewhat loose morals, it was probably also true that he’d killed a man “in the name of Araktéans safety,” as he’d so heroically put it.
Isaiah turned his attention to where Tzelem’s body was lying. He had once again, almost forgotten about the incident. Still too numb to feel anything resembling sadness or remorse.
“You chose well, boy. Now this land has one less snake to feed.” The Zura said. Isaiah wasn’t sure what a snake was, but someone had once described it as a sort of strange, legless lizard. Thus far, he’d never seen one in Delta, and there had been no mention of it in any books he’d ever read.
“Won’t there be troubles with the Huxleys?”
“I think nobody will miss him. Animals will probably eat his flesh before anyone stumbles upon him. Not much prey out here these days, so they take whatever they can get – even poisonous things.” Tzelem had already disappeared once, and Isaiah could not remember anyone leaving the fortress to look for him. Perhaps it was because Araktéa was too large, and as the wanderer he was, he could have been almost anywhere – “dead or alive”, as he remembered Lord Huxley putting it. As it turned out, he had only been some forty miles away, sculpting and repairing shoes of villagers – people who, once upon a time, would have kissed the feet of nobles as they came riding in. Luckily, nothing was quite so formal anymore, but the thought of a high-born on his knees polishing shoes – the image of Tzelem as a shoemaker – was still too ridiculous for him to fully grasp or fully believe.
“Should we bury him?”
“You can dig a hole here if you feel like it. I’d rather go back to sleep since someone woke me up in the middle of the night.” Dove said, and then got up from his seat where he’d already been half asleep for some time. Isaiah looked over at the body. Both in Nahbí and Delta, many claimed leaving a corpse on the ground was disrespectful. He wasn’t quite sure why, for if he’d ever had a soul in there, it was surely gone. The body was an empty shell, and regardless if it was put in the soil or not, something would surely eat it – perhaps making more use of him than when he’d been alive. “If he’d been a plant, he would have been a bad seed”, Isaiah thought. But even if it had been convenient and much more comprehensive, people were not exactly like plants or animals. Tzelem was not one of these snakes. He was not a sunflower (less so now than ever, for he had killed or at least commanded a killing to take place.)
“Maybe we should just throw him into the woods...” Dove grunted, getting back up again. Even though he might not look like a man that minded sleeping among corpses, perhaps he was – or perhaps, after some consideration, he saw it as a half-honorable compromise. An act that didn’t acquire the same effort as digging through the rough ground with his bare hands.
“You should take his boots first. Say what you will of the man, but he was a damn good shoemaker.” Isaiah hesitated, but as his own were more than well-worn, he decided to pull them off – Tzelem still owed him that much and he certainly wouldn’t need them now. Pulling off the left one, he noticed the new wounds he’d been complaining about. They were different from the ones he’d once had – darkened by blood, bumpy, and gross-looking.
“Now look at that, looks like he was doomed already, lad. I hope you haven’t been breathing too close to him…”
“No… we kept our distance.” Dove measured the boy, and then took a long and unsubtle step away from him.
“Well, yet another reason you ain’t sleeping anywhere close to me.” This, Isaiah felt completely fine with. And as far as the disease went, he was too tired to be truly concerned – they had kept their distance. Before resigning, he pulled off the other boot from the leg that had once been miraculously healed. He’d suspected to see some scarring there, but what met him instead, were fine hatches.
“It’s… it’s wood?” He stuttered. Turning away from the fire, the Zura glared at it in disgust.
“As I thought. Rotten to the core… none of us killed this man.” He muttered and then lied down next to the fire, praying silently until the dream spirits took the worst of his anger away.
*
Having thrown one dead man into the woods and hung another over the horse he’d left behind, the three remaining men were ready to leave early the next morning.
“How far is Hoshonto from here?” Isaiah asked, pulling on his new boots and accepting a water flask the Zura offered him from a safe distance.
“You don’t need to come. You can stay here or go home – do whatever you like.” It seemed the man they’d mistakenly thought to be the commander, had now quite effortlessly stepped into the role. Browsing the insides of his cape, he pulled out the knife he’d taken from him before, and handed it back to him.
“Your great grandfather’s knife.”
“You… you are letting me go?”
“You made a mistake. From the circumstances you’ve told us, they were not of your own making. Besides, we only brought you because you were accompanying him. It’s a suspicious thing for a man to deny his profession. And there’s nothing shameful about being a shoemaker – we all need shoes…” He said casually, and Isaiah wondered if he’d never joined the Zuras when they danced around large fires – their feet buried deep into the mud, making odd roars into the darkness. He’d sensed the guardians had grown more empathetic towards him after the story, but he had not imagined they’d be sluggish enough to let it compromise their duties. Surely, he’d committed a rather serious crime, and even if he’d been unsuccessful, he sensed he deserved being put to trial.
“So, you are letting me go. Even though I almost killed Dove?” He asked, hearing the sudden noise of the large man laughing from behind him.
“You were nowhere close to killing me, boy. If anything, you’re only a danger to yourself.” Isaiah looked around puzzled, trying to grasp the fact that for the first time in four years, he was truly free. A free man in his prime, with his own horse and four gold coins. No debt to pay, no master to serve and hopefully no disease.
“How can I get to Delta from here?”
“It will be around a five-day ride, go towards Hoshonto, then follow the narrowest road from there heading straight north…” the new commander explained.
“Could I ride with you till then?”
“We’re heading back south.”
“Oh… I am sorry if I’ve wasted your time.” He had apologized for the murder attempt a great many times already, but it was only then he realized that he’d also taken up time they could have spent keeping the roads safe. The commander made a sound of something in between a sigh and a chuckle.
“That’s quite alright. Good luck on your journey.” He said, then got himself up in his saddle as easily as most people sat down on a chair.
“Don’t ride around with people you don’t trust. And by all means, find the ones you do. These days, riding alone and paperless is almost the same as being a ghost.” Dove said, and with two friendly nods and one last hand gesture from the commander, the guardians rode off, leaving him free and frightened in front of the dying dim of the fire.
Isaiah knew the four directions of the sky and the stars that marked them, but it was daytime, and they were all in hiding. For a few minutes he sat down, trying to figure out how he’d resume in order to get home in one piece. He’d need to avoid the bears, the Huxley fortress, tribal people, as well as the many other unknown dangers nobody had bothered telling him about. All he had to protect himself was a knife he didn’t know how to use, and the rope he’d taken from Tzelem’s dead, bound hands. The first, and the only conclusion, he came up with as far as strategy was concerned, was that he needed to ride very fast. Being alone was among the most dangerous things you could do in these woods. If you added inexperience to this, standing still was another, and so, in a hurry he unbound Indra and made her run for both their lives. “First Hoshonto – then straight back home,” he repeated to himself, and never had he been so petrified and motivated at once.