Chapter 71 - An Alliance of Hope

  Sometime later, Adam and Emily were sitting on their makeshift mats in the tunnel towards the Utenanga Node. The light of their crackling campfire illuminated the lush foliage hung with clusters of grapes. Farther in the distance, the dim green glow of the leaf-vein-like pattern in the ground cast shadows on the faceless wooden statues that lined the walls. The croaks of brightly coloured frogs echoed from the walls.

  Adam poked their fire with a stick, moving the branches inside to help the flames spread. Soon, they were able to roast two hares they’d hunted for dinner. There wasn’t much meat on them, but Adam was happy with all they could find to fill their stomachs these days.

  Emily sat beside the fire with her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Say, Adam, when we’re back in the real world…”

  “Hmm?” Adam gave another stern poke at a big stubborn log that refused to burn.

  “I may know a group of people who could keep an eye open for your kid. Maybe they even have some intel that could help you in your search.”

  Adam sat back and rubbed his beard. “Hmm… does this group happen to have a name? Even a political affiliation, perhaps? Does it start with a ‘P’ and end with… ‘enduli’?”

  Emily placed a hand above her heart and made a fake gasp. “My, my, you truly are a master of observation.” They chuckled for a moment. “I mean it though,” she continued, smiling with a twinkle of curiosity in her eyes. “Our members and allies are spread far and wide. And… if you’re serious about stopping whatever misery the Starwing Order is cooking up, you’re gonna need our help.”

  Adam guffawed. “Yeah, sure.”

  “I’m serious. You can’t seriously expect to beat up the whole army with your fists. But… in the rare occasions when you’re not distracted by anything artsy like those dumb frescoes of yours”—she winked at him—“you’ve gathered quite some accomplishments. People with your skill set are welcomed with open arms at the Penduli, so, why wouldn’t you join us?”

  Adam’s initial tendency was to respond with indignation, then he frowned. He’d wondered before why he had hated the Penduli this much, now that Caine turned out not to be a human turd. “Well, they’ve attacked medical institutions, have caused this whole war with Dorenland and they’ve spread the…” Adam cut himself off. Although he had almost automatically said the Penduli were behind the Taint, as everyone had told him, the recent events shed those beliefs in a new light.

  Emily clenched her jaw and closed her eyes for a moment, clearly swallowing some frustration. “I get why you say that, but that’s some filthy. Damned. Propaganda. What’s the benefit of doing something inhumane like that?! No. You saw who is truly spreading the Taint; the Starwing Order. And they’re blaming it on us, to direct the rage of the population, while they can keep using it in their vile schemes. The Penduli believe the Starwing Order attacked those medical institutions to erase evidence of their own experiments with the Taint.”

  Adam’s frown deepened as he rubbed the jagged scars on his wrist. From what he’d recently learned about the Starwing Order and Oliver’s twisted plots, what Emily said did sound a lot more likely.

  With a bitter look in her eyes, Emily continued. “And the Penduli aren’t some ‘filthy rebels’ or some group of terrorists as the Starwing Order likes to portray us. Do you remember how Gotterburg used to be independent when we were little?”

  Adam blinked a couple of times. “Huh?”

  “I feared as much.” Emily gave Adam a pitying glance and continued. “Gotterburg used to be a city-state before it ended up in Dorenish hands during the Silver Pact; to the horror of the population. Recently, the Penduli had actually succeeded in liberating the city. The people could finally breathe the free air again, for a while. Until the Dorenish army, with Jeremiah at the head, took it back.”

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  Adam scrunched up his face as an uncomfortable, tugging sensation occurred in the middle of his head. Although he instinctively pushed them back down again, vague memories of his early childhood rose. Adam hadn’t been allowed to play outside back then. No, people were yelling and fighting in the streets. There were way more guards out there, soldiers even. Protests. He remembered how dad—who used to come home every day—was gone far longer and more often those days.

  “It’s messed up, I know,” Emily said flatly. “For years, Dorenland has been actively erasing Gotterburg’s culture and identity to replace them with their own ideals. All who aren’t like the Dorenish, who don’t follow their dogmas and religion, are treated like vermin. There are signs that lefthearted people have even been used as damned test subjects! And Gotterburg isn’t the only place where this shit is happening. Dorenland has been expanding to the south for years; conquering more and more lands and cities. And its power extends far beyond its borders. The Dorenish murdered or imprisoned leaders of independent countries and replaced them with puppet governments who supported Dorenland. They infiltrated royal castles, disregarded treaties, and stole riches wherever they could. So, a group of factions and small neighbouring countries in the south of the continent formed an alliance: the Pendulum Collective. Faced with the humongous, power-hungry nation to the north that’s called Dorenland, we had little choice but to cooperate to survive.”

  As Emily kept ranting. Arguments popped up in Adam’s head that sounded silly. That the Penduli were a bunch of heretics, but it made no sense to believe that when he didn’t even believe in Aves himself.

  Emily raised an eyebrow at Adam. “Come on. You’ve never believed there was a single superior religion or some way of life that should ‘rule above all others,’ right? No, you’ve always appreciated cultures from all over the world. And why wouldn’t you join a faction that welcomes both Novaseers and Insticas, instead of the Starwing Order where you’re treated worse than a beast?”

  Adam frowned into the fire, as he felt a vague tugging sensation inside his own head. Although he still felt as if he should be repulsed by the Penduli, the reasons seemed strange. As if they were not his own. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. “Did Oliver Taint me to hate the Penduli?”

  Emily gave a pitying smile. “I have suspected so for quite a while now. Seeing your past and your beliefs, it would make sense for you to support the Penduli. But that wasn’t in his interest.”

  “So, that filthy worm planted his own ideas in me,” Adam said slowly as he stared darkly into the fire. “And reinforced them by leading me into Caine’s house, with Catherine and Eric.” He exhaled deeply and looked aside. “Damn.” As if remnants of his Taint fought back, part of him resisted the idea. A slowly diminishing part.

  Emily nodded encouragingly. “This is good, you know. The more you realise about his damned Taint, the more you can—”

  Adam kept looking sideways and pressed a finger to his lips. He gestured at Emily to look into the tunnel as well. A dirty shade of greyish yellow had overtaken most colours. There even seemed to be a subtle, flickering disturbance in the shadows. The birds and frogs in the distance had become silent. If they were still there at all.

  Emily quietly got up, ready to spring into action, and peered into the distance. “What is that?” she whispered.

  Adam frowned at the curving tunnel. Somehow, the strange light gave the rows of faceless wooden statues a rather sad and even hopeless impression. The old man who leaned on his cane now seemed to bend down even farther, unable to bear something horrible.

  Suddenly, Adam knew from where he recognised the feeling. “A Thuraum.”

  Emily’s eyes widened and shot back to the tunnel. “We have to leave,” she breathed. “We’ll find a different route to Utenanga Fortress.”

  “No, it already took us days to get here. That would take too much time while Caine is waiting for us!” Adam bared his teeth in frustration as he weighed their chances. “We should try to find a way past the Thuraum’s Corrupted or whatever creatures are in there. However… even if we reach Utenanga Fortress and learn how to make an Invocation to leave the Realm, we need some Origin to power it. Now that the Roots are gone, we don’t know another source to gain Origin from without killing Thalers, who are necessary to keep Caine’s Realm together. There are trilobites, sure, but how would we find those? We’ve only come across them once in our entire time in the Realm. So, we have to take some Corrupted down.”

  Emily’s breath had quickened, but she swallowed and nodded. “All right, we’re just gonna trade fists with one of my brother's traumas, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Adam stood up and cracked his knuckles. After everything Caine had gone through, he deserved some slack from his mental horrors. And if Adam could help by fighting them head-on…

  Hot blood flowed through him at the prospect.

  “Let’s go,” Adam said.