E Stricker - The Almanac

The mosaic would have been made long after that. It was of all the plants they had gathered. A celebration of all they had learned.

Illya stopped, remembering that night at the fire again—and something that didn’t quite fit. The pattern of pebble leaves had still been outlined on his calf after he had gotten home that night. He had barely moved the whole evening because he had been so distracted by Sabelle. There had been something strange about those leaves. He touched his calf with his fingertips, imagining that the ghost of their imprint remained, though it was long gone.

He frowned then shook his head. The memory was wrong; that must be it.

He turned back to the rabbit skin, tying it tightly to its frame. He would never be back in the village to look at the stupid mosaic again anyway.

The morning dawned with frost on the ground. When Illya came out of his cave, he stared around in disbelief. Every blade of grass and rock was silver. The river steamed slightly. The air was sharp. The wind had shifted direction, now coming out of the north.

First frost.

It was too soon. There should be more time left. But Illya had lost track of the days out here. Going listlessly from day to day, seeing no one but himself; he couldn’t be sure if it had been two weeks, or less, or even more.

The big stream slowed and turned beside his cave, gathering into a pool before flowing on. In the cold air, the water seemed still, almost as smooth as glass as it reflected the dawn sky. It reminded him of the mirror they had found on the day he had gone into the old city with Benja.

His hair was longer than it had been then. It was wild around his head. The water blurred his features in a way that the mirror hadn’t. It was appropriate, he thought, as if the blurring had not come from the motion of the water, or the occasional wisps of steam drifting across it, but from himself. He was distorted: a guilty man weighed down with mistakes. None of the clear innocence remained of the day he had laughed with his cousin.

Now it was the face of a coward.

Illya stared himself down in the water.

This was the face of a guy who would leave his best friend in prison and run away to save his skin. A lot of things could hide behind a face.

The old, sick feeling rose in his throat. Samuel had said he could be the master of himself, but he hadn’t done anything like that. He had run away.

The air bit his nose; he breathed it in deeply, feeling the cold of the morning penetrate into his lungs. It woke him, jolting him out of his gloom, clearing his mind.

He remembered Conna drinking the brew, telling Illya that he had hit his brother when he was small because it was good for him.

He had gone in front of the village to own up to what he had done, but he hadn’t owned up at all. He had run away like the worst kind of coward. But not before he had let Conna manipulate him then handed the village to him on a platter.

Conna who would hit Aaro, who would arrest his own father; Conna who was capable of anything.

Illya’s breath came out in pants, hot against the frosty air.

Maybe there was still something he could do. He couldn’t fix everything, but maybe he could make accounting for a little of what he had done. He took a step, then another. He would find them. This place had been kind to him, although he didn’t deserve it. There was still game here and plants too. It wasn’t enough for everyone, but his ma, Molly, Benja and his parents… they could have a chance.

He was going back for his family.

IF HE TOOK the safer route through the forest, it would be a journey of several days to the village. If he went north and met the path, he might make it all the way in a day or two if he moved quickly.

But it was much more likely that he would meet Patrollers on the path. Approaching the village unseen would be nearly impossible.

He thought about Conna and how the skin of brew had seemed stuck to his hand every evening. If he could hit his brother, what would stop him from hitting someone else? Illya’s mother, his little sister; all of them were defenseless. Conna was the Leader, with all the Enforcers behind him and much less of a conscience to stop him than Illya had ever had. Anything could be happening in the village now.

He knew how the brew made you feel; how easy it was to make bad choices seem justified. Conna would be desperate to solidify his position. He would want to make examples, to distance himself from Illya and the plan that had failed.

That would be more than enough of a reason to imprison Illya’s entire family, or worse. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that they were in real danger. It had been weeks. Conna could have locked them up without food. They could have been starving all this time.

Illya made straight for the waterfall and the more dangerous path. He had not retraced his steps since he had made his cave camp, preferring to range farther out in his explorations. The way back was unfamiliar, but he knew that he could not go wrong if he followed the watercourse.

It was still early when he reached the falls. They were taller than he remembered, at least thirty feet high, and surrounded by wet rocks and sheer cliffs. He had climbed right up them to reach the safer refuge above. It had not seemed like a difficult feat then. That day, he had faced death many times over and accepted it.

The mob of villagers, the Terrors; all of it had made the climb seem like nothing in comparison. Perhaps it had been nothing. The way up from the bottom had seemed simple, with obvious handgrips and footrests.

Now, looking over the edge, he could see none of the friendly grips. The rocks were steep, slippery, impossible. Flanking the falls on either side, an accompaniment of cliffs dropped as abruptly as if the earth had been sliced off with a knife. It was as if the gods had decided that this was where the world would end, and the water and anything else that didn’t realize it in time to stop its forward momentum could just go ahead and drop right off.

Low clouds had settled down over the mountains over the course of the morning and now obscured the earth below the falls almost entirely. Illya stood on the edge of the world and looked out over a sea of boiling gray vapor. The water that roared past him fell to unimaginable depths. Tiny flecks of spray hit his face in a desperate attempt to throw themselves back up to the land of the living.

Illya sat down on the edge of the cliff, thinking back to the route he had taken up it, trying not to think of his family back in the village at Conna’s mercy.

After some time, with no success, he walked to the right then to the left in hopes of finding an easier way down.

The cliff was impassible.

To the right, the cliffs ended where the mountain went up. If he were to find a passage in that direction, he would have to climb it. It would take a day and take him far out of his way. Even then, there was a chance he wouldn’t find a way around.

The left ended in yet another cliff, which dropped down abruptly, leaving no possibility of going forward.

Discouraged, he returned to the falls. The sun was already at height, and the low clouds had cleared away. Now he could see that it wasn’t as far down as it had seemed, perhaps the height of five men.

He stared over the edge into the pool. He had already lost a full morning. As the sun moved across the sky, his mind ran away from him. While he was stuck here, anything could be happening to his family. There could be riots. His family would be a target. They could even get killed.

He remembered the plunge into that pool on the hot day of his flight, how the water had folded around him, embracing him, and he knew the answer.