Escape (The Prisoner and the Sun #1) Page 4

  She nodded.

  Iliff sat up in the bed. “What was he like?”

  “He was young. Brimming with questions.”

  Iliff thought of the old man and how his childhood friend had made it out, after all. He started to laugh but then realized that a lifetime had passed since then.

  “How old are you?”

  She smiled. “I am beyond years.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “Like you, I am from the Sun,” she said. “But I am also of the Earth. Like you.”

  “How can we be from both?”

  Her green eyes lingered on his. “How indeed,” she said at last.

  * * *

  One morning Adramina removed the bandage to reveal fresh pink skin. She pressed her hand to his abdomen.

  “Your wound is healed,” she said. “You no longer require the poultice, but you will need more time to regain your strength.”

  Iliff nodded.

  “You have a decision before you.” Her eyes darkened. “One that will require careful thought. You are no longer in the prison, but neither are you in the world out there. You must choose. If you wish to go forward, I will help you. If you wish to return, I can make it seem to the others that you never left.”

  Iliff looked up, startled. He had not given any thought to leaving. He assumed he would remain here, with her.

  “But be warned,” she continued. “If you choose to go forward, it must be to the Sun. It will seem the longest, most perilous road, yes, but all others lead to despair. Indeed, you would wish for your prison again.”

  Iliff looked beyond her.

  “No, Iliff, this place is not a choice.” She tilted her head and stroked his hair. “But so long as you are here, you will be my cherished guest. You may visit any room in my dwelling with a door that bids your passage. You are not to enter the others, least of all my private chambers. There are things here you are not ready to see, rooms from which you would never return. Do you understand?”

  Iliff could barely bring himself to nod, so heavy was his disappointment.

  Without warning, she clutched his forehead. Iliff looked to her face, which was suddenly narrow and intense. Something stirred in the recesses of her expanding eyes. In the next instant, Iliff felt his brow releasing, felt the gloom that clouded his mind becoming thin, wafting away. His thoughts became fewer and clearer. As she removed her hand, her mien was gentle once more.

  “There,” she whispered. She stood to leave. “I will return when you have made your decision.”

  * * *

  Several days later Iliff set out to explore Adramina’s dwelling. Though the earthen abode was large, he found most of the colored doors closed to him. The remaining rooms opened one onto the other, like beads on a string. They formed a long, looping hallway where roots ran in and out of the walls and beige sands carpeted the floors. As he walked, Iliff considered his choices.

  He had given little thought to the prison since arriving here. Now he pictured Yuri standing behind the bars of his cell door, calling to him in whispers, calling him back to the familiar walls and routines. For a moment Iliff allowed the phantom entreaties of his old friend to move him. But they could not hold him. He remembered his suffocating discontent in those final months, his joy at discovering the five-pointed crevice. He remembered Yuri’s betrayal.

  The prison was no longer a choice for him, not even if Adramina did have the power to make it seem he had never left.

  He ran his hand along the roots in the walls, pushed his toes through the sand. His legs had firmed and strengthened in the last days, and he imagined them now carrying him to the Sun. Long, she had called the journey. Perilous. He repeated these words to himself, and the more he did, the more they frightened him. After all, the world out there was foreign to him, the ways unknown. Anything could befall him. Injury. Illness. Death, even.

  Iliff had nearly completed his walk, and was no nearer a decision, when he came upon a green door. Something in its color and contours told him it was the door to Adramina’s room. He raised his candle to the wooden frame and felt its smooth, slender curve.

  He had not seen her since the morning she had come to remove the poultice for the final time. The only evidence of her presence were the trays of food she left him, the fresh water, the basin and towel for bathing, the tea in the evening. Sometimes he thought he could hear her moving in a nearby room, but by the time he got there, the air would be still, the space empty.

  Iliff moved his hand to the door handle, his fingers curling around the braided roots. But he did not test the door. And after several moments he sighed and made his way back to his room.

  * * *

  Days and weeks passed and still Adramina remained elusive. Iliff feigned sleep so he might catch her delivering his tray. But after hearing nothing, he would open his eyes to find a fresh arrangement of food on the sill and the clay vessel brimming with water. In the evenings he splashed his bathwater with his hands, then rushed to the room where she prepared his tea, but the clay cup would already be out, steam rising from its mouth.

  He tried similar deceptions but with no more success.

  “I cannot stand this,” he cried one evening. “It has been many weeks and I can think of nothing else. So what if I enter her room? What harm is there if it is only to look upon her?”

  With that he strode to the green door. As he eased it open, a rich, mysterious smell enveloped him.

  …rooms from which you would never return.

  He paused before stepping inside. The room was cavernous, the ceiling and walls obscured by their very depths. He held up his candle and advanced one step, then another, glancing back to the door each time.

  It seemed a long time before his light fell on a bed of elaborately woven roots. There he found Adramina sleeping.

  He held the candle to her perfect face. His gaze beheld the gentle tresses that framed it, that descended to swathe the smooth skin of her body. It was almost too much. He wanted so badly to lean in and inhale her fragrance, to slide his hand beneath the verge of her hair and hold her soft cheek. But he did not dare to disturb her. He stood at her bedside and watched her sleep, until his candle was nearly out.

  When Iliff returned the following night, he was surprised to find thin lines etching the corners of her eyes and settling into her brow. He followed them to the verges of her face where her hair now appeared straighter than before. It lay limp and without luster along the angles of her body.

  By the next night the lines had proliferated and deepened into creases. The brittle hair exposed a contracting figure. As he moved the candle over her, the light showed mottled skin and knotted joints.

  On the final night he found only a withered form. Her breath came and went in dry scrapes.

  “Adramina?” he whispered several times. He shook her gently, but her eyes remained closed.

  He wanted to help her but he did not know how. He lowered himself to her bedside and found one of her fragile hands to hold inside his own. He took the water vessel from her nightstand and tipped it to her lips, but the water only ran down her neck. He sat looking over her decrepit body. It reminded him of the prison with its torn and crumbling walls. And in the next moment Iliff was overcome by the frailty of everything, and he began to weep. He continued to hold her hand, even as he shuddered over her. Did nothing last? he wanted to know. And if not, what was the hope of anything?

  Then he remembered a part of the old man’s story that had not seemed significant to him during the telling. Slowly Iliff straightened. He went over the old man’s words many times in his mind. It was only much later that he folded Adramina’s hands over her chest, touched his lips to her wispy brow, and retired from her room.

  Chapter 6

  The following morning Adramina entered his room, carrying a vessel of fresh water. She appeared as luminous as on the morning he had first seen her. Her green eyes glimmered over him. “You have made your decision?” she said.

  “Y
es,” Iliff replied, hiding his amazement.

  She set the clay vessel on the sill and picked up the empty one. “You will tell me this evening?”

  “I will tell you this evening.”

  He watched her turn, watched the soft tresses of hair flow around her movement. He breathed her lingering fragrance. Her resurrection was as mysterious to him as it was complete.

  That evening he heard Adramina calling to him. He followed the song of her voice along the hall to one of the rooms that had been closed to him. Stepping beyond the door, he found her sitting where the roots in the wall had spun themselves into an elegant chair. She nodded to a woven mat on the floor, illuminated by her soft light. All else lay dark. Iliff thought he could hear water trickling into a pool somewhere.

  “You have made your decision.”

  “Yes,” Iliff said, taking his seat on the mat. “I will venture into the world out there. I will seek the Sun.”

  “Very good,” she said. “Many are called, but few hear the call. Even fewer heed it.” Her eyes grew large. “But the way is not for the weary or the weak. Neither is it for the whimsical who, distracted by this fancy and that, exhaust their energies. No. Those who seek the Sun must be steadfast and strong.”

  Iliff’s gaze faltered.

  Adramina smiled down on him. “Ever lurking is your doubt, Iliff,” she said. “But think how far you have come already. You left your cell while those around you slept. You cleaved stone. You moved earth. Had I not thought you capable, I would not have taken you in. I would have returned you to your prison, and there you would have awakened, in darkness and in pain.”

  “But how am I to go?”

  “Your path is up,” she said. “Ever up. For that is where the Sun is seen. Only by this path can you come to know the Sun’s nature. But you must walk as if on a gossamer thread. No more so than at the outset, for miserable creatures abound. Some of them you will recognize and avoid, but others will appear attractive and beckon to you with sweet tongues and crooked fingers. Still others will seem pitiable, and you will think it heartless to ignore their pleas. But do not be fooled, Iliff! Many a Seeker has stepped from the path saying, ‘Only for a moment, only for this or that,’ only to become lost, never to regain the path—nay, never even to seek it. Such is the power of the lower creatures, those who want only for themselves. They will be your first test.”

  Iliff became fearful. “Am I to do this alone?”

  “You will have companions,” she said. “Some will be Seekers like you, and you will go together so long as your paths are common. Others will be Guides, though you must discern the true from the false. But, too, there will be times when you will have to journey alone.”

  “What about you? Can’t you come with me?”

  She shook her head. “The journey must be your own, Iliff. I cannot make it for you. But should you become truly lost, should your trouble appear dire, think on me, and I will assist you as I can. But only three times may you call on me. For only three times will I answer.”

  Iliff nodded, relieved to have her help at least. He was about to ask her about the tests when she smiled and spoke.

  “The tests are your path. Already have I told you of the lower creatures. Already have I pointed to your doubting mind. The other tests you cannot yet understand, though it will do no harm to name some of them.” She fell silent for a moment, her eyes closed. “You will confront shadow and light. Neither is what it will first seem, no, and yet both are as they are. You must come to see this. Greater will become the lands and waters out there, but greater too the guardians that keep them. To get beyond them will demand much of you. And then there is your final test.” Her green eyes glinted as she opened them. “To look upon the Sun. To perish at last.”

  Iliff felt his stomach draw in. “Perish?” he whispered.

  “Yes, but do not fear. For the path, if it be true, will demand many deaths of you. Look on yourself, Iliff. See that you are still here. Yet I tell you that you have passed through death already.” She leaned toward him. “You could not have made it to this place otherwise.”

  Iliff became faint. “I am dead?”

  “As you knew yourself, yes. You once gave a stranger a gift. Do you remember? That is when the seed germinated. It took root when you listened to his story. The roots drank of your curiosity and fascination. They spread. They split the stone around you. But your death was not consummated until you left the prison and sealed the way behind you.” She looked on him intently. “Someone tried to stop you?”

  “Yes, my old friend. Yuri.” Saying his name, Iliff realized how much he missed him. “He was afraid for me, I think. Afraid for the prison.”

  “That was you, Iliff.”

  “Me?”

  “You act startled, but when you looked on his face, who did you see? You saw yourself, did you not?”

  Iliff closed his eyes and shook his head. But a part of him had known, the same part that had screamed silently when he buried his friend’s image—his own image.

  “It sounds harsh. But I could also have said that the path, if it be true, will demand many births of you. And that to look upon the Sun is to be born at last. Open your eyes, look at yourself again. Gone is Iliff of the prison, yes. But here sits Iliff who is beyond the prison. As the world you know becomes greater, so too must you. At times this will require you to shed off old forms, at others, to join with new ones. I say again, it is the only way you could have arrived here. It is the only way you will advance in your journey.”

  Iliff suddenly felt lonelier than he ever had.

  “Salvatore had to leave his prison self as well, and it was no less difficult for him. It troubled him greatly.” She was quiet for a moment. “It might interest you to know that you met Salvatore’s prison self.”

  Iliff opened his eyes.

  “He was your stranger,” she said.

  Iliff thought of the sagging old man with the spires of white hair.

  “These deaths I speak of are our own, Iliff, not theirs. They will continue to exist. And though we leave them behind, our journey can transform them as well. It was just such a transformation that moved the old man to share Salvatore’s tale with you.”

  Iliff tried to make sense of this, but his confusion only excited his fears and the result was sudden anger.

  “But you said I could go back,” he cried. “You said it was my choice.”

  “And so it remains. After all, there can be lessons in going back.” Her voice became hard. “Just as there can be lessons in going into forbidden rooms.”

  Iliff had dropped his gaze but now started up. He found her looming over him. Her green eyes seemed to blaze and darken at once, casting a shadow over the room. The air quivered and quaked. He tried to back up, to turn away, but something held him. Adramina’s eyes continued to expand and deepen until she no longer looked like a woman, but something beautiful and fearsome, something that could destroy him with a gesture.

  “You were very foolish to enter my room and look on me.” The voice shook inside his head. “You cannot look on things for which you are not prepared. I told you this. Had I not sensed your presence, not altered my form, the sight of me would have consumed you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  The eyes that held him became the many doors of her dwelling. Most of them were closed, but some were ajar, and all of them shone and trembled in their frames. Iliff feared that they were going to come flying open at once and overcome him. But at the last instant, Adramina’s eyes relented. The air around her stilled, and she diminished into her woven chair. Soft light returned to their space

  “Tell me now, Iliff,” she said, her voice strangely calm. “Tell me what you saw in my room.”

  Iliff struggled for a moment to find his words. “I—I saw you dying,” he said. He peeked up, relieved to find that her face remained passive. “And then I saw that everything around me was dying and falling apart.”

  “This saddened you.”

>   He nodded, recalling the withered texture of her hand, the deep aching in his chest.

  “But you did not remain sad.”

  “No…” He thought for a moment. “I remembered the old man’s story. I remembered the Sun telling Salvatore that it was eternal, that it was the source of all things. I understood then that if I journeyed to the Sun, that if I were able to get there and look upon it, I need never fear death or ruin again.” He glanced back up at her. “It was this thought that comforted me.”

  “What is the Sun to you?”

  “I can’t see its light. I can’t hear its voice. And yet in that moment last night, it was as if I had known it once. And having known it, I could not help but seek it again. It was as if there was no other choice for me.”

  “And this remains your decision?”

  “It does.”

  “Even after everything I have told you. Everything you have seen.”

  “Yes.”

  Adramina descended from her seat and knelt before him. “That is good, Iliff.” She wrapped her slender hands over his. Light beamed from her face. “Go now and prepare your bag. Rest well this night, for tomorrow I will show you the way to the world out there. The way home.”

  Chapter 7

  The next morning Adramina led Iliff through her dwelling to a closed door that he did not remember from his walks. The door was round and gray. When she opened it, he was surprised to see light beyond, faint though it was. It dabbed through a space near the ceiling where roots wound around one another to form an opening. Below the space, roots arced from the earthen wall like the steps of a ladder.

  “There is the way out,” she said. “Follow the roots and the path of least darkness. Do not stray. The tunnels beyond are many. Seekers have been known to become lost in them.”

  Iliff nodded.

  “I have prepared food for you and filled your skin with water. You will also find clothes inside better suited to your travels.”

  Iliff had felt the extra weight in his bag. He looked through it now and discovered the additions. The clothes were tied into a neat bundle. Among them were earth-colored trousers, white tunics, stockings, a green sleeveless jacket, and a long burgundy cloak. Dark boots lay folded at the bottom of the pack.