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Adam scanned the surrounding trees. Surely this child wouldn’t be here alone. He stepped back and faced the creek. The boulder blocked a third of the current so the downstream side was a large, smooth eddy. He could jump into the eddy, but he had no idea how deep it was. He looked over the side. Better to break an ankle than be captured—or killed.
He turned again and scoured the woods, watching for movement—or an escape route.
“Are you alone?” Adam called, still scanning the trees for others.
He finally pried his eyes from the trees and looked at her.
She gave a shy nod.
“I’m Adam,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“My new name is Kailyn. May I join you?”
When Adam was silent for a moment, the girl smiled, took three quick steps toward the boulder, and with the smooth swiftness of a panther, climbed onto the rock.
Adam took a step back but then relaxed at her disarming smile when she extended her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Adam.”
He shook her tiny hand, surprised both by the strength of her grip and the warmth of her greeting.
If there are others, it shouldn’t be too hard to trick this kid into giving up their positions. “What are you doing out here alone, Kailyn?”
She stepped past Adam to the edge of the boulder and sat down, dangling her feet over the creek. “I was sent for you.”
A chill ran through Adam’s core.
“Sent for me? By whom? Are you ... one of the mountain people?”
Adam looked around again. Was that someone moving in the trees? Or just a bird fluttering among the leaves?
“I was sent by someone who knows why you snuck out of the city in the middle of the night, and who wants you to come home to your family.”
“Home? You mean—”
“He knows where you came from. And he—”
“Wait a minute. He knows where I came from? Does he know how I could go back? How does this person know about me? Who is he? And who are you? And why—”
“I told you, I’m Kailyn. And if you come with me, I’ll take you to meet him. He lives in a cottage in the high country.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “The magical cottage?”
“Not magical, but powerful. And beautiful. It has colors that ... well, they’re hard to describe to someone who hasn’t seen them. But I promise you, when you see them, you’ll never be the same.”
Adam looked at Kailyn a long time.
“Many years ago, when I first came here, I saw ...” He lowered his head and looked down at the water. “Never mind.”
He had long ago stopped believing in the cottage. If it existed, why wouldn’t he have seen it all these years since the pond? If it were clearly visible from the pond, and the pond was only a few minutes’ walk from the south orchard, surely he would have seen it the many times he searched that area.
“Why are you out here, Adam?”
He took a seat next to her and drew a long breath.
“Years ago, when I first came here, there was this little ...”
Kailyn gave him a moment, then cocked an eye. “This little ...?”
He struggled to make a meaningful summary of what led him to this moment, but the tangle of thoughts refused to order themselves.
Kailyn waited in silence.
Adam sighed. “One of your people came into the city once and told me, ‘Don’t touch the gold.’ I have often wondered why she said that. Tonight especially. After ... some things that happened, I couldn’t get her words out of my head, and I’ve been trying to make sense of them. I know it sounds silly, but when something is on my mind, it seems like I can think more clearly when I get away from the gold. That’s why I’m out here.”
Kailyn smiled and swung her legs around to face the city.
Adam hesitated, then turned to look as well. Light from the moon glinted off the buildings.
“What do you see?” she asked.
Adam sat in silence, gazing at the city.
Kailyn gave him a few moments, then leaned toward him and widened her eyes. “Well?”
“I see ... gold.”
“What else?”
Adam paused, then frowned. “I see a place where thousands will wake up in a few hours and scurry around in a frenzy, accomplishing nothing. We move things, count things, buy, sell, work, rest—and we build beautiful buildings that fall on us, and we die.”
Adam’s gaze dropped to the boulder, suddenly repulsed by the slumbering metropolis.
“Sorry. I’m usually not this cynical. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Guess I’m just ... tired.”
“It’s not because you’re tired. It’s because you can see now. You’re right about the gold. Being near it does cloud your vision. You’ve been out here, what, an hour? And you can already see how pointless your life is.”
“Well, aren’t you little Miss Sunshine.”
“No,” she said with a hint of a smile. “I told you—KAI-lyn.”
Adam tried to read her face. Was that a child-like misunderstanding or mature humor?
“Right,” Adam said, “your new name. Why did you change it?”
“I’m not the one who changed it. Everyone who goes through the cottage gets a new name.”
“What if they don’t want a new name? I don’t think I would. I like my name.”
“Of course you like the name you’ve always had, because you’re still the person you’ve always been. But when you become a new person, your old name will no longer fit and you will come to hate it.”
“Sounds like people who go there lose their identity. Why would anyone want that? I wouldn’t. I may not be the man I ought to be in some ways, but—”
“You don’t lose your identity. You gain it. Right now, your identity is corrupted. When it is renewed, you’ll be what you were created to be.”
Adam eyed Kailyn for a long moment. “The things you say ... you don’t really talk like a child.”
Kailyn frowned. “Do I look like a child to you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. No, you’re a big girl. Very mature. And you—”
“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter right now. Just come with me to the cottage and you’ll understand.” She stood and hopped down off the boulder.
Adam didn’t move.
“I know a direct route. We could be there in two days if we hurry.” She motioned with her arm. “Come on.”
“I ... don’t know. I have a lot of work—”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Moving things around and counting them?”
Adam frowned. “You don’t realize what you’re asking. My life is in the city. And I have enough gold now to buy anything I want.”
“Like what?”
“Anything. I can buy tools for work—”
“Your work of moving things and—”
“Not just work. We have entertainment in the city. We have flocks of birds with glorious colors. Whenever I need a break or just want to have some fun I—”
“You enjoy some amusement. And what does that do for you?”
“It gives me rest so I can have energy to ...” Adam hesitated, not wanting to hear her repeat the description of his meaningless job a third time.
“You work and you have fun.” Her eyes widened, “But what about adventure?”
“Adventure?” It was a new word for Adam, yet somehow he had an idea what it meant.
“The city is obsessed with fun,” she said, “not adventure. That’s because fun is safe. Adventure isn’t.”
“If it isn’t safe, why—”
“Because adventure has higher stakes. The potential for great joy comes only when pursuing things of great value. But that means exposing yourself to the risk of great loss. Fun has little risk of loss and provides only the shallowest gain.
But I must warn you,” she added. “Attaining great gain also awakens dangerous enemies.”
“Right now I don’t care about fun or adventure. You said something about going home. Tell me more about that.”
“That’s the adventure I’m talking about. I can show you the way, but it’s not an easy path. Not everyone makes it.”
“Not everyone? There are ... others trying to find their way home?”
“Your family, Adam.”
He turned and studied the creek. Is it possible this strange little child has met my family? Could they be trapped here too? Did some of them ... not make it?
“I’ll be honest. Finding my way home is something I gave up on some time ago. Or at least I tried. But thoughts of my family never go away. It’s like they’re built into me.”
Adam tossed a pebble into the creek. “You asked why I came out here. Same reason I always come—to find peace.”
He pointed to the churning rapids. “That’s what my life is like—tumbling, random chaos. It’s why I love watching the river. It calms me. The sounds, the motion, the complexity and simplicity. It’s like a metaphor of my life in some ways.”
Kailyn picked up a stick and climbed back up to where Adam stood. They watched the rapids in silence for a few moments.
She looked down at the placid eddy created by their boulder. “Is that what you want your life to be?”
Adam watched the moonlight glisten off the smooth, quiet surface of the eddy. “I would give all the gold in my house for that.”
Kailyn pointed with the stick. “Do you see where the slow upstream movement of the eddy collides with the downstream current coming around the rock? They call that an eddy fence.”
She tossed the stick into the eddy. They both watched as it floated gently upstream toward the boulder. When it met with the eddy fence, the stick tumbled a couple times, was carried several yards downstream by the main current, and was pulled back into the eddy where it drifted toward the rock again.
The cycle repeated a dozen times. Finally, the stick caught in a swirl along the eddy fence and was pulled under.
Minutes passed. Adam shifted his weight as his eyes darted about the eddy to see if the stick would reappear.
“Do you think it ...” Adam looked up. Kailyn was nowhere in sight. He stood and climbed off the boulder. She was gone.
Adam peered into the darkness to the west. What’s out there?
*****
High in the western mountains, a man named Watson and his friend Layth waited in a cavernous hallway within the Ruler’s headquarters as the high country wind howled outside.
Normally, Watson’s profound intellect was sufficient to solve whatever challenge he faced. But now he could only stare at the glistening marble floor, powerless to help the woman he so dearly loved. He winced with each scream emanating from the other side of the door. But this was part of the training, and she had to go through it alone.
Layth nodded toward the sign above the door. “She’ll be strong. You’ll see.”
Watson looked at the sign and touched the patch covering the eye he lost behind that same door. Layth was right, of course. Neither of the men would have survived the battles in the lowlands without the training. And the war to come would require strength, skill, and whatever weapon Abigail was learning to use in that room.
Another of Abigail’s screams penetrated the door. Both men looked again at the sign: Room of Delights. Every room Watson had explored in this building had served to prepare him for the war, but none had been more painful—or more crucial than this one.
“Thank you for coming,” Watson said. “This mission could prove exceptionally perilous. And there is no one I would rather have fighting beside me than you.”
Layth smiled through his red, bushy beard, lifted his massive, scar-patched arm and squeezed Watson’s shoulder.
Watson couldn’t help but grin whenever he saw Layth’s untamable red hair, which insisted on lunging in every direction like a wildfire burning on his head. He considered it a fitting metaphor of Layth’s unpredictable and devastating heroics on the battlefield. Watson had many times seen the enemy run in terror at Layth’s arrival.
What a comical contrast the two of us comprise, he thought. Watson knew his slender build and neatly trimmed beard struck terror in the heart of no one. He could only hope his analytical skills and knowledge of the enemy’s tactics would prove helpful on this mission.
At last, Abigail emerged from the room, her smiling face still bleeding.
“Did you receive your weapon?” Watson asked.
“You’re looking at it,” she said.
“It’s a good one,” Layth remarked. “Perfect for you.”
Watson nodded in agreement. “What is the mission?”
“The most recent collapse in the city revealed a point of vulnerability,” she said. “There is already an operation underway to exploit it, but forces are gathering to defend the city. We are to assist the operation and bring those who are vulnerable here before the city rebuilds its defenses.”
“Ah yes. And assume Layth will be join—”
“No. Only the two of us for now. The Ruler doesn’t want us to ...” she turned to Layth and smiled, “attract attention.”