He was small, solidly built, with wild hair that would have earned mockery if he hadn’t been so intimidating. There was just something about him, a way he held himself that made him the leader of this group—of everyone here and everyone who’d lived in the Community before.
Janan turned his eyes on Stef and me, sizing us up in an instant: my hunched shoulders, Stef’s broken leg and acid-eaten foot, and the way both of us kept checking the sky. “Hello, boys. You’ll be among the first to hear the good news.” He surveyed the approaching crowd and turned to Meuric. “Everyone is coming? Even the wounded?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Have the warriors conduct a census.”
“Where did you come from?” Stef asked. “I don’t see a door.”
“There isn’t one. And inside, it is so, so empty.” The way Janan grinned was predatory, like a troll or dragon, and gave me the almost desperate need to run; but I wouldn’t abandon Stef. “I didn’t summon you all to discuss my imprisonment. I summoned you to tell you that I succeeded in my original quest: I have found a way to overcome death.”
13
“SO YOU DIDN’T need to be freed?” I asked.
“I did.” Janan glanced at Meuric, who tucked a small silver box into his pocket. “Meuric obtained what was needed to free me. And I am sure you think he could have brought a smaller group here, to accomplish that. But I wanted everyone here.”
“How did you know what Janan wanted, Meuric?” I glanced at the young man, but he just smiled.
“I’ll explain everything when everyone else arrives.” And he did make us wait. Instead of answering our questions, Janan asked about our journey here.
Unable to contain my anger, I snarled, “We lost people. Hundreds. Thousands.” My fists were shaking at my side. “We traveled for months, and people died during that journey. People died as soon as we got here. My brother—”
I gasped for breath, struggling against the swarm of dizziness that filled my head. My heart wanted to curl and crumble under the weight of memories.
“I see,” Janan said. “Go on.”
“And now Stef is injured.” I blinked to clear my vision. “We’re all losing people. Because of this. Because of you.”
Stef flashed a wary look my way, a reminder that I was speaking to Janan. But our leader just nodded, like he cared how deeply we’d all been hurt.
When the crowd began to fill in, I put myself between them and Stef. He was quiet, and breathing hard even though we were standing still.
Help Stef. Be brave, my brother had said.
The trickle of people began to slow. The numbers had gone from hundreds to thousands, and then so many my mind couldn’t begin to comprehend. Guards pushed through the crowd, dividing people into groups of a hundred so they could be counted. Others placed lit torches all around the area, casting flickering light over the assembly.
Meuric nodded at Stef and me. “In you go, boys. That group.”
With Janan watching from atop a platform someone had constructed for him, Stef and I moved into a crowd of other teenagers. I recognized Cris and Sarit, two girls slightly older than I was, and a girl named Julid who Stef thought was pretty.
“What’s going on?” whispered Julid.
“Everything is about to change,” I answered, because Stef was focused on standing; his fingers dug into my shoulder.
At last, the guards and Councilors finished their census. “A million,” reported Meuric. “There are just over a million of us.”
That was half the number we’d begun with in the Community months ago. Had we really lost so many people?
Janan nodded. “That will do.” He straightened himself on the platform and lifted his voice. “I need everyone to be silent. I need all of you to hear.”
The place within the white walls grew quiet, with only the wind in the trees, and the clap and spew of a geyser beyond the wall. No one moved. I doubted anyone even breathed.
“I left the Community,” Janan began, “to seek eternal life. And I found it. I found a way. But before I could return to you with this knowledge, I was stopped. Captured. Trapped here. Because our enemy does not want us to possess this knowledge.”
The crowd was so quiet.
“Now that you are here, however, we can defy death. While I’ve been trapped here by our enemies, I’ve had time to fully comprehend their secrets. Phoenixes live and die and then live again. They exist in a cycle of perpetual reincarnation—rebirth. I’ve learned the truth about immortality and how I can use their magic to make you like phoenixes.” Janan drew a long knife from his belt. It was steel, but in the flickering lights, it looked as though it had been dipped in gold. “And so you will be.”
“We’ll be reincarnated forever?” someone asked. “Like phoenixes?”
Janan shook his head. “Not forever. While you all live your lives, gain knowledge and experience, I will be working on something better. True immortality.”
That was impossible. Stef and I exchanged glances, both of us scowling. We lived, we suffered, and we died. That was the truth of our existence.