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A God-like voice bellowed, “What are you doing here?”
Thick, strong fingers clamped Adam’s shoulder and the back of his neck and drove him out of the cave. He stumbled forward and would have fallen if not for the iron grip on his shoulder.
Whoever held him seemed to see in the dark just fine. Arriving outside the cave, the dawn’s first light revealed his captors. Towering before him stood the giants he thought he had escaped. His heart turned to stone.
Up close, the men were even larger than he thought. Standing as tall as he could, Adam barely reached his abductor’s waist. The rest of the men were even taller, and they all glared at Adam.
The tallest of the men, perhaps the leader, spoke first. “Are you lost?” His resounding voice vibrated Adam’s chest.
Adam kept his eyes down. “I ... I apologize if I’m trespassing. I’m just passing through and needed some shelter for the night. If this is your land, I’ll move along.”
The man released Adam and the group slowly parted, allowing Adam an eastward path.
“Um ... actually ... I was going that way,” he said, turning west.
The man from the cave frowned, not moving from Adam’s path. He had a square jaw, fair skin, and blond, curly hair. He glanced at the leader, who nodded, and he stepped out of the way.
Adam began walking, his muscles tensed from head to toe. Would they really let him go that easily? Images of the mutilated bodies assaulted his memory. With each step he wondered—would a sword impale him from behind?
He quickened his step, daring a glance over his shoulder. The giants hadn’t moved. The curly-haired one watched Adam, his expression almost ... concerned? Adam stopped. Why did they want me to go east? His eyes shifted westward. Is there something they know that I don’t?
With tentative steps, he rejoined the giants.
Curly smiled. “Good choice. This isn’t a good place to be alone. You’ll be much safer with us. My name is Alexander. And this”—he extended his hand toward the leader as if introducing a celebrity—“is Doctor Jensen.”
“I’m Adam. I was on my way to find a cottage in the high country. I heard it was—” Adam stopped when he saw their reaction.
The men encircled him and he felt like a sapling in a forest.
Doctor Jensen spoke. “What business do you have with the cottage?”
Jensen’s searching glare gave Adam the sense he was on trial. He decided not to volunteer any more information to these men just yet.
Despite the rough meeting in the cave, Alexander struck Adam as the friendliest of the group, though that wasn’t saying much. Alexander broke the silence. “I don’t think he’s one of them. He’s too big. And look at his clothes. He’s from the city.”
Jensen stroked his thin, salt-and-pepper beard.
“Not one of ... whom?” Adam asked.
“The mountain people,” Alexander replied. “They are small, but dangerous.”
“I thought you were the mountain people.”
All the men laughed—except Doctor Jensen.
Adam cocked his head. “So ... this isn’t the high country?”
“The high country is west of the river,” Alexander said, pointing across the grassy valley. “Trust me, you do not want to go there.”
“Are the mountain people responsible for the bodies down there?” Adam asked, nodding toward the carnage.
The men exchanged glances. Then Alexander spoke. “You are welcome to join us if you like. You’ll be safe with us.”
“With respect, that’s not an ans—” Adam swallowed his words when Doctor Jensen raised a brow. Adam hadn’t seen it before, but now he wondered how he had missed it—their eyes were huge. He thought back to the mural in the library. Could these be the ... Adam’s heart had been pounding with fear. Now it raced with hope.
“Are you the ... prophets—the Great Ones?”
For the first time, Doctor Jensen smiled. “We are students. Some call us prophets, but we have no supernatural knowledge. Quite the opposite. We are merely observers of the natural.”
Adam struggled to contain his enthusiasm. “I’ve read many of your writings and dreamed of meeting you someday. I have so many questions. All those years in the city, and I’ve never seen you.”
“We travel wherever our research takes us,” Jensen said.
“Do you know of a pond south of the city?”
“We do,” Jensen said.
“Could you take me there? Or tell me how to find it?”
“Why do you want to go to the pond?” Alexander asked.
“I believe I am from ... another place. I need to know how I got here and I believe the pond is the key to—”
“It’s not,” Jensen said. “And there is nowhere you could go that would be superior to the city. It boasts the richest supply of gold and fruit anywhere in the world.” With a sweep of his hand he added, “You can see the scarcity of fruit out here.”
A war between grief and desire erupted in Adam’s chest. Grief, because a decade of hope in the pond as the way home had just been swept away. Desire, because the thought of returning to the gold, fruit, and safe familiarity of the city wooed him.
“I noticed that,” Adam replied. “Is it like this in the high country as well?”
“Fruit is outlawed in the high country,” Alexander said.
“Outlawed? Why? How do they live without eating?”
“People still eat. But they have to do it in secret to avoid shame or disciplinary action from their merciless Ruler.”
“Have you been there?”
Alexander turned his head to the west. “I grew up in the high country. Before I came to my senses, I believed in all that nonsense—the myths, the magical colors—all of it.”
“And the cottage? You’ve seen it?”
Adam sensed from Alexander’s lowered eyebrows the question may have been a mistake. It seemed dangerous to show interest in the cottage with these men. He tried his hardest to sound casual, but he couldn’t restrain his curiosity.
“So, what’s inside?”
“Nothing. I have been through every square inch of that old shack, and I assure you, it is an interesting historical site—nothing more. The uneducated fill the vacancy of the place with contrived fantasies. With a little reading, one grows beyond such stupidity.”
Alexander paused, released a deep breath, then continued. “They believe their myths and traditions because they want them to be true. Rational people have evidence-based knowledge, not blind faith. Take my advice—go back to the city.”
“I’ve tried. But I couldn’t make any headway against the ... air. It rushed against me.” Even as Adam uttered the words, he realized how ridiculous they sounded.
Adam cringed when the men snickered. To be thought a fool by such a venerable council mortified him. He craved their approval.
“So someone told you about the wind?” Alexander asked.
“The ... wind? No. I—”
“I know the wind can feel very real. I thought I felt it when I lived in the high country. But studies have proved there is no wind. It is amazing what the mind can convince itself of when it really wants to.”
With a roll of his eyes, Doctor Jensen turned and began walking.
“Come on,” Alexander said. “If you have any trouble with the ‘wind,’ we’ll help you through it.”
The allure of the city and the opportunity to spend time with the Great Ones compelled Adam. He’d had quite enough of this ill-fated adventure.
But he hesitated. He remembered the difficulty of getting through the foliage to make it this far and had the sense that a second attempt may not be successful. Was it wise to simply discard all his hard-fought progress?
Trailing behind the others, Alexander turned back toward Adam. “Are you coming?”