The null cycle gives way to the rising but I’ve been awake for hours. I need less sleep these days. My hardened body grows less tired, less fatigued by my long treks. It would be logical for it also to be less hungry if all else is improved, but I slip out before the first light of the rising cycle, far enough to be out of sight, sound, and smell of the cave, and I cook my meat on a rock banked by a small fire.
No matter how rank the beasts are that I kill, their meat always makes my mouth water. It is as if it is made for me and me alone. I can’t imagine what the reaction of others would be if they were to find me feasting on flesh, but I don’t think that it would be positive. So, I hide and skulk and feast until I am filled in isolation.
I could slip out and away before the others are fully up, but I don’t. I eat. Cover the fire in dirt until I’m sure that it is out, and trek back to the group. The child, Plim, is the first to greet me.
“Did you find any monsters?” His eyes are so wide and earnest that I can’t help but smile.
“A few, but they’re far away. We’re safe for now.”
“Good.” He nods as if my words have gravity. “I’m going to keep lookout, just in case.”
“That’s sensible. Always best to have someone on lookout.” Plim rushes off with the seriousness of youth with a task in mind. My eye has been tracking creatures since I climbed from the gorge and there is nothing for a mile in any direction. I expect that the monsters from the previous day had bullied the others out of the area and it would take some time for the sector to reach a new equilibrium, that is unless the architects intervene as they often do.
Heric raises his palm to gather my attention. I stroll over to where he stands beside the small stream that runs at the bottom of the gorge. He’s stripped to his waist and glistens with water where he’s cleansed himself. His body is wiry with muscle and pocked with old injuries and a few that have the fresh glint of new damage. It is a miracle the architects provide food and water for if they had to provide their own, this group would have starved. Or perhaps they would have followed in my steps and put their faith in the flesh.
“Morning, Heightened Pik. Find anything on your patrol?”
“Safety, for the most part. Nothing to threaten you for a mile about.”
“That is good news. Thank you.” He wipes his hands on his trousers and steps closer. “I’d thought when I woke and you were gone that you might not return.”
“I didn’t know if I would be welcome to stay.”
“True enough. We can’t be too careful.” He looks up to the rising lights and sighs. “Might I speak my thoughts? I will, actually, but if you’d listen I’d welcome your council. We need to distance ourselves from River; it is too dangerous to remain near their territory. Do you think we would make it to the Plains tribe?”
I think before I answer. I take in a deep breath and fall into my body for a moment; I feel the cool air sink into my lungs, I feel the beat of my heart quicken almost below perception to draw my blood through my arteries and veins, a small thing. A breath resets my life each moment and have come to treasure the occasions where I can marvel at the gift of my own body as it changes and improves.
“No.”
“That is a harsh truth, Pik.”
“I don’t believe that your group will cross the segments in between, let alone face the trials of the spires or swamp. So, no. I don’t think you should make for the Plains tribe as you are. If you had maybe two or three Marked you might brave it, but you may simply be turned back by the tribe for fear of your strength.”
“If we had two or three Marked who were loyal and trustworthy, then I wouldn’t be running. There’s space enough to carve our own in one of these segments.”
“True enough.”
“What about Pine?”
“I couldn’t say. I don’t know where they reside nor what lies between.”
“Then what would you council? I cannot do nothing.”
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I shrug. The pack had been so heavy when I’d started out but now sits snug on my shoulders, a physical reminder of the burden of Aviela’s loss. “I am just a man with a spear. I’ve not found a place for me to stay, let alone what amounts to a new tribe. I’m sorry, Heric. I cannot help with this, as much as I would like to.”
“No. I’m sorry, Pik. This is not your weight to bear, it wasn’t fair of me to raise my concerns this way. I’ll do what I can. Do you know where the exit to this segment is?”
I point it out. My new eye tracks a dot whenever I enter a new segment it remembers the exit and layers it onto reality for me. All I need do is turn until it appears in my vision and then I have an unerring direction to follow. I cannot get lost in a place that I’ve already been.
“Take care in your travels, Papa Heric. You in this sector are not used to walking so far, so remember to tend to your feet. They are your greatest companions as you travel. I hope you find the place you hope for.”
“Wont’ you come with us? We could use a spear like yours, we wouldn’t have survived yesterday without you.”
“I’m on a different path than you, I think. I…” I shuffle my feet, feeling the weight of eyes from the other members of the group who are failing to hide that they’re listening. “I wish you the best.”
“You too, Pik. If you change your mind, we would be happy for you to walk with us.”
“Thank you, Heric. Could you tell Plim that I think he’s doing a great job and he’s very brave. I will…perhaps I will see you again in another time.”
I’m faster now. I turn before Heric can trap me in conversation and hop across the stream. I’m away and up the gorge quickly and gone from the fledgling tribe in only a few short moments. My chest is tight. I stop beside a tree out of sight until my throat loosens and a few lonely tears dribble down my cheeks.
“Stupid. They’ll be fine.” I stare at the ground and see my lies. “I can’t save them. I’m not Marked, I can’t even advance. I need to keep going. I need to follow the book and situate myself in the universe.” I can’t read the words but I remember them spoken by Aviela. I just wish that I understood them. What I wouldn’t give for her to be here. She’d give me a slap about the head and set me right. She’d know what to do.
I’ve wandered for so long that I keep moving from sheer momentum. Every step is is one that takes me, I hope, towards that final understanding that will unlock my mark. I worry, though, that each of my revelations has come at the hands of violence and then embedded through gorging myself on the flesh of my defeated foe. I’ve fought, hurt, and eaten so many times since I staggered out of the dungeon that something should have happened. Yet it hasn’t.
“I’m not going back in.” That’s certain. I’ve said it enough times. I won’t go back into a dungeon alone; if Aviela, with her experience of fifteen solo dungeon clears, could be taken by surprise and killed by the boss then someone with no powers and a spear he can barely use better than a stick will stand no chance.
I trek for half the day through gorges to keep out of sight, only rising above the lip to check my bearings and to give my eye a chance to scan the environment for danger. It is on one of these excursions that I climb higher than I have for some time. I lift myself higher still into a tree and look back towards the exit to which I’d sent the group earlier that day.
I blink.
The red marks don’t leave.
My mouth dries and my hands tighten on the branch. My eye isn’t omnipotent; the distance to the exit is almost a day of walking so it cannot see everything. I’m high enough, though, that it has a clear view right to the wall and it tells me things that I cannot comprehend. That I don’t want to understand.
“No.”
One by one the group of dots and lines that makes up Papa Heric’s group fade. Some blink out entirely while others shrink.
“They’re fine.” I whisper into the wind. “I just left them this morning, they’re still fine.”
The light tips beyond its zenith and begins to lower as I stay in the tree, frozen. I can’t draw my eyes from that distant horizon and the world shrunk to lights in my eye. It is my growling stomach that finally forces me down. I summon an obelisk with a smack of my hand on the ground and take in water, all the while feeling like I am watching myself move from outside my body. I eat a few bites of jerky and wash it down with more water.
I should run. That’s the sensible move. I don’t know these people, not really. They aren’t my problem. Only yesterday I was content to let more of them die so that I could cut meat for myself. But…now they are people to me. They are people with names and faces and fears.
I’m just one man. Not even a strong one. I’m still a coward. No matter how many monsters I face or trials I overcome, deep inside I’m still that cowering little man that couldn’t do anything while his tribe carried all his burdens.
I turn away.
“They’re either dead and it doesn’t matter or they’re alive and they’ll figure it out for themselves. Heric’s smart. He’ll find a way.”
My legs don’t want to move.
“Come on. You can’t have a bleeding heart for everyone you meet.”
The light of my spear has faded; not even a wisp escapes.
“They might have some gear I can trade.” I know they don’t but the selfishness of it seems more reasonable than turning back for altruism. “It would be a shame to let it go to waste or get trampled by monsters.”
I nod. That’s right. There’s a good reason that I should turn back. I can always leave if things look bad; get in, look around with my new eye and leave again if there are monsters or Marked. I can probably outrun most Marked. Probably.
My body sings with contentment as I turn fully and face myself towards the distant dot of the exit. This is the right thing to do. “Heric’s going to be there and he’ll laugh at me being worried.” I shrug. “Or I can have his shoes. Either way I come out on top.”
The wind mocks me with its silence. I ignore it’s judgement and step off, leaning into a jog that will eat the miles faster than my usual stolid walk. Best not to leave things too long after all.
