In the afternoon it started to snow. Countless white snowflakes fell to the earth from a windless sky. It wasn’t the light kind of snow that swirls in the air. Each snowflake had its own solid weight and fell straight to the ground like a stone.
I left my home, went down the western hill, and hurried toward the gate. Fragments of snow were frozen to the backs of the beasts I passed on the street, but they kept their eyes down, resigned to it, breathing out white breath as they sluggishly trod their way forward. The past few days the cold had gotten worse, and the nuts and leaves that served as their food were scarcer. Even more beasts would expire, starting with the weakest.
A pillar of gray smoke rose outside the north wall, thicker than ever, billowing into the sky. The Gatekeeper was keeping busy today, too, gathering the corpses of the beasts and burning them. The smoke rose straight up into the sky, sucked into the heavy clouds like a thick twisting rope. I felt sorry for the beasts, but the more corpses there were, the busier the Gatekeeper became, gaining me more time.
The Gatekeeper wasn’t in his cabin. The stove was burning brightly, though, warming up the room. Hatchets and adzes were neatly lined up on his worktable. The blades looked newly honed, threateningly seductive, glistening, glaring wordlessly in my direction. I walked through the Gatekeeper’s cabin, cut across the shadow enclosure, and went into the room where my shadow lay.
The smell was heavier than before, with a premonition of death hanging over the room. As I entered the room some of the dark knotholes in the wooden walls looked at me, as if sending out a warning. As if telling me, I know what you’re thinking. My shadow was wrapped in a quilt, sleeping like the dead. I put a finger under his nose to check if he was breathing and saw he hadn’t died yet. My shadow finally woke up and listlessly writhed.
“Have you made up your mind, then?” my shadow asked weakly.
“Yes. Let’s get of here now, together.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“I was sure you wouldn’t come back,” my shadow said, slightly turning his head in my direction. “I must look terrible.”
I helped my shadow’s gaunt body sit up, and we went outside, with me basically supporting him. And then I put him on my back. The Gatekeeper had warned me never to touch him, but I didn’t care anymore. My shadow hardly weighed a thing, so it wasn’t hard to carry him. As my shadow adhered more to me, he should get strength from my body and slowly regain strength. Like a plant in the desert desperately absorbing water. I wasn’t very confident, though, how much strength I could give my shadow at this point.
“Bring me that horn over there, if you would,” my shadow said from my back as we cut through the Gatekeeper’s cabin.
“Horn?”
“Right. If we have that it’ll be hard for the Gatekeeper to chase us.”
“He’ll be really angry,” I said as I eyed the glistening hatchets and adzes.
“It’s necessary. If this town wants to, it can become very dangerous. We have to be ready for that.”
Without understanding why, I did as told, and took down the horn from where it was hanging on the wall and put it in my coat pocket. The old horn had turned amber colored from years of use. Made from one of the beasts’ single horns, it had fine engraved carving on it.
“We don’t have much time,” my shadow said. “Let’s hurry. I’m sorry I can’t run by myself.”
“If we cross town with you on my back, a lot of people will see us.”
“They’ll find out soon enough that we’re escaping. Anyway, we have to get to the south wall as quickly as we can.”
Lugging my shadow on my back, I left the Gatekeeper’s cabin. No going back now. We reached the river, and crossed the bridge, heading south. Snowflakes melted in my eyes, and I couldn’t see in front of me. I kept bumping into beasts. Every time I did, they cried out in strange little voices.
Probably because of the falling snow, there weren’t many people out on the streets, but still, there were a few who saw us. They just came to a halt and stood there, silently looking at us. It was pretty rare in this town to see anyone running. Would they report us somewhere? Report that the Dream Reader was with his shadow again and running away from the town? Or maybe this didn’t mean anything to them?
Since coming to the town, I’d done no real exercise, and light though my shadow was, running with him on my back wasn’t easy. I kept puffing out heavy white breaths into the air. The air I inhaled, mixed in with all the snow, was freezing. My lungs stung like they were being pricked with needles. We finally arrived at the foot of the southern hill and I took a break, catching my breath, and turned to look behind me.
“This can’t be good,” my shadow said. “Take a look. There’s not as much smoke now from burning the beasts.”
My shadow was right. Through the ceaseless snow, I could see that the smoke beyond the north wall was thinning out.
“The snow must be making the fire go out,” my shadow said. “If so, the Gatekeeper will go back to his cabin to get more oil. And he’ll see I’m not in the enclosure anymore. He’s a fast runner. Then we’ll be in big trouble.”
It wasn’t easy to clamber up the steep slope of the southern hill with the shadow on my back. But I’d made up my mind. Giving up halfway wasn’t an option. And like my shadow said, If this town wants to, it can become very dangerous. I kept on climbing, sweating under my coat. I somehow made it to the top, my legs as stiff as rocks, my calves cramping up.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take a break,” I said, crouching down, out of breath. I knew we were in a race against time, but my legs could barely move.
“Okay, rest here for a while. I’m sorry I can’t run, but don’t worry about it. Would you mind handing me that horn?”
“The horn? What’re you going to do with it?”
“Don’t worry, just give it to me.”
Not knowing what was going on, I took the stolen horn from my coat pocket and handed it to my shadow. He held it to his lips, took a big breath, and blew it as hard as he could. He aimed it at the town down below, blowing one long note, followed by three short ones. The usual sound of the horn. I was surprised that he could play it so well. It sounded almost exactly like when the Gatekeeper blew it. I wondered when he’d learned that skill. Did he learn just by watching?
“What are you doing?”
“Blowing the horn, as you can see. This will buy us some time.” The shadow then hung it on a nearby tree trunk, so it’d be easy to spot. “This way the Gatekeeper will be able to find it and take it back. Because he’ll be after us for sure. If he gets back the horn, maybe he won’t be quite so angry.”
“How does this buy us time?”
“If we blow the horn,” my shadow explained, “the beasts will all head toward the gate. And then the Gatekeeper will have to open it and let them outside. And once they’re all out he’ll close the gate. In his job, he must follow those rules. It takes time for all the beasts to go out. And it’ll buy us that much time.”
Impressed, I looked at my shadow. “That’s very smart of you.”
“Listen. This town is not perfect. Even the wall isn’t perfect. Nothing’s perfect in this world. Everything has its weak point, and one of the weak points of this town is those beasts. The town maintains an equilibrium letting the beasts in and out in the morning and evening. And we just wrecked that balance.”
“I bet the town will be angry.”
“Most likely,” my shadow said. “If the town possesses something like emotions.”
As I massaged my tight calves, my legs finally loosened up. “Okay, let’s head out,” I said, then stood up and hitched him up on my back again.
It was all downhill now, and I could, for the time being, make it on my rested legs. There was the occasional uphill slope along the way, but it was almost all downhill. I had to watch my step, but I was no longer out of breath. The road petered out, replaced by a trampled-down path that was easy to miss. We passed by a small, decaying village. The snow kept on falling. Then snow clung to my hair, forming hard lumps. I regretted not having worn a hat. The thick clouds covering the sky seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of snow. And as we walked, that weird, choking sound from the pool reached me intermittently, fading in and out.
“If we’ve made it this far, I think we’re good,” my shadow said from my back. “Once we cut through those bushes we’ll be at the pool. The Gatekeeper won’t be able to catch us.”
I was relieved to hear that and took a break. We seemed to have made it through okay.
But right when I thought that, at that very moment, the wall loomed up in front of us.
Without warning the wall suddenly stood before us, blocking our way. The same high, solid town wall. I halted and gulped. Why was there a wall here? When I came down this path before, there hadn’t been one. Without a word I stared up at that twenty-six-foot-high barrier.
You shouldn’t be surprised, the wall told me in a deep voice. That map you made is utterly worthless. It’s just lines scribbled on a scrap of paper.
I suddenly knew: The wall was able to freely change its shape and location. It could move anywhere it wanted to. And the wall had decided not to let us get out.
“Don’t listen to it,” my shadow whispered from my back. “And don’t look at it. It’s just an illusion. The town is showing us an illusion. So close your eyes and go through it. If you don’t believe what it says, and aren’t afraid, the wall doesn’t exist.”
I did what my shadow said, just shut my eyes tight and kept on walking.
The wall spoke. No way you guys can get through the wall. Even if you did get through one, another wall would be waiting for you. It’ll be the same, whatever you do.
“Don’t listen to it,” my shadow said. “You can’t be afraid. Just run on ahead. Get rid of any doubts and trust your heart.”
Yes, go ahead and run, the wall said. And it laughed loudly. Run as far away as you’d like. I will always be there.
The wall’s laughter rang in my ears, as I kept my head down and ran straight ahead, heading right toward where the wall should be. At this point I could only trust what my shadow said. Don’t be afraid. I gathered my strength, got rid of any doubts, and trusted my heart. And my shadow and I passed through what should have been a thick brick wall, like we were swimming through it. Like passing through a soft layer of jelly. An uncanny, incomparable feeling. That layer seemed made of something between the material and the immaterial. Time and distance didn’t exist there, and there was a unique sense of resistance to it, like grains of different sizes mixed together. With my eyes closed, I cut through this slimy obstacle.
“Like I told you, right?” my shadow said in my ear. “It’s all just an illusion.”
My heart made a dry, hard sound as it beat inside the cage of my ribs. In my ears I could still hear the wall’s loud laughter.
Run as far away as you’d like, the wall had told me. I will always be there.