The previous afternoon, after the ceremony, I had told Emmy that I couldn’t wait. That it was going to be fantastic. The best ever. Sign me up for two lifetimes, and then for an encore. But when the sky grew dark and there was nobody around to see my false enthusiasm, the terrors grew particularly dark and vivid. Each nightmarish scene depicted one of the millions of ways that I might inflict disaster onto the sols. Onto Blesswood.
I tried to tell myself that it would be fine. That the academy had been coasting along with a perfect reputation for too long anyway, and that a little tarnish would do it some good. Spice things up. As long as they didn’t use my blood to try and buff the stain …
Crowds swelled around us as we waited by the oldest piere tree for our transport cart to arrive. This huge, gnarled, ancient thing represented the most northern point of our village, where the two dirt roads intersected. One leading to Blesswood in the north, and the other leading to the last vestiges of civilisation in Minatsol. Beyond that … nobody really knew. Not a single person had ever travelled any further south than the last village and actually returned; and none of us were any wiser as to what lay in that most mysterious part of Minatsol. More death, I was sure. Or maybe it was paradise, and that was why nobody ever came back. The thing was … that was a pretty big gamble: death or paradise? Only two villages lay further from Blesswood than ours, and both struggled to grow from the land. Water was scarce, but their leaders had expressed on more than one occasion how grateful they were not to have me, so that was something.
Minatsol was set out in a ring-like pattern. The very centre was Blesswood. It was there that the most fertile of life was. Each circle that extended out grew worse and worse. We were in the seventh ring, and there were nine in total, that we knew of. Beyond that was the south road, and the gamble of death or paradise.
Glancing up, I let the sway of red and green-tinged leaves soothe me. We were in the middle of the hot season, but despite a scarcity of water, this old tree continued to provide shade and shelter. As the folk stories told it, this tree was from the time before. No one liked to talk much of the time before. I’m not sure any of the stories really truly remembered the true beauty of our world. Apparently, all of Minatsol—not just Blesswood—had once resembled Topia; which was said to be the most beautiful of all worlds. Not that any of us knew about the other worlds. We just assumed that they were out there. Somewhere. Like Topia.
“You ready for this, Will?” Emmy gripped her bag loosely, her other hand wound tightly through mine.
“How long do you think it’ll take mum to realise we’re gone?” I continued to scan the crowd. It was common for the village as a whole to send the Blesswood recruits off, but there was no sign of my dirty-blond, tired-faced, red-eyed matron.
Emmy’s silver hair slid across her cheek as the slightest of breezes lifted the strands. She looked extra pretty, having taken time and care with her appearance. I had worn my good shirt, and it was even mostly clean, except for a little sooty patch on the back from where I had accidently sat in the fireplace.
“Probably around the time she realises that her medical kits are full, and that my dinners have run out,” Emmy replied.
Yeah, my mother used those medical kits almost as much as I did, because believe it or not, there was another person out there capable of causing as much chaos as I did. She wasn’t born that way, though—not like me. She got there with the help of alcohol and low morals.
Noises swelled in the crowds, and I could see the transport cart slowly moving toward us. Yellow, ochre-coloured dirt kicked up beneath the four spoked wheels. It was believed that within the sacred walls of Blesswood, they had transport systems able to move without the help of bullsen—the huge, black, pointy-headed beasts that now pulled the approaching cart. It wasn’t called Blesswood for no reason, you see. The gods gifted them with magic and technology of the calibre that dwellers could only dream of. That must have been where the book on tar had come from: from a place where the reality was far beyond even our brightest sun-cycles.
Emmy started dragging me to the now-waiting transport, her grip on my hand tight with nervous energy. People reached out and touched us as we left. Dwellers were superstitious by nature and believed that these were the actions which would garner favour with the gods. This was why we served the sols the way we did—I mean, other than the fact that the sols would probably burn our villages to the ground if we didn’t. We wanted the gods to reward us, to see our use, to recognise our people. So when any of the dwellers were chosen to serve the sols, the others always made a show of their support. They hoped that eventually the dwellers would find themselves recognised as more than just the bottom rung of sentient life in our world.