The Story of Samo-Chapter Two, Part Eight
Few people passed as Samo and Kiara walked down the hall. She held onto his arm, wrapping her arms around it, and walked slowly by his side. A few times, she looked up at him only to find him staring ahead in a blank state. If he had been dressed more regally, she would have thought he might have been on his way to a state funeral. She started to say something now and then, but stopped, realizing that he would not answer. He probably didn’t even notice her clutching his arm. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t. He didn’t notice the fact that she liked him. Even if he did know she was holding onto him as if they were together, he probably wouldn’t make the connection.
As they entered the library, Kia looked up from the table, which had been slightly cleared of books. He looked at the two with a bemused smirk and said, “And where have you two been?”
“Kia, shush,” Kiara said. She tilted her head slightly toward Samo and led him to a chair. Lowering him onto it, she walked to her brother and knelt beside him. Samo was staring ahead in a catatonic state. As they watched him sit there, with his hands on his knees and his eyes on the other end of the library, she said, “He was reminded of Gianan.” A slight whimper came from Samo, causing Kiara to bite her lip.
Kia whispered, “What happened?”
She said, “I met him taking a couple of boys back to their teacher. After we introduced ourselves, she recognized his name. She was sympathetic.”
Nodding, Kia said, “Well, you may as well get something to eat. We should let him sit there until he’s ready.”
Where the books had previously been, there was now a platter with some black bread, sausage, cheese, two apples, and a flagon with diluted wine. Kiara sighed and said, “Yeah, he may be a while.”
As she filled a small plate with food, she notice Kia reading a small book. She said, “What’s that?”
“Oh,” he said. “It’s just something about the Hellwalkers.”
“Figures.” She chuckled as she filled a glass with wine and said, “Leave you in a room full of books on science and history, and you pick one on myth and legend.”
He answered, “Hey, you don’t know that. Myth and legend can be very real.”
“Prove it.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll prove it in one word.”
She took a sip of the diluted wine and said, “This ought to be good.”
“Foresters.”
Kiara paused, leaving the glass just below her lips. She looked at him and said, “That is something completely different.”
“No it’s not. Think about it,” he said, closing the book. He leaned forward and said, “The ‘legends’ tell us that humans interbred with the Fallen to create race called the Forest Children. They came to be known as Foresters. They were obviously not human. They were color shifters, like chameleons. They never slept, but hibernated in winter. No one’s seen them for over a hundred years. People don’t even think they exist anymore. Plus, we’re descended from them.”
She cradled the glass in her hand and took a bite of sausage. After chewing and swallowing it, she said, “Okay, you have a point, but Hellwalkers?”
“How does engineering explain sorcery? It doesn’t. That’s a power of the Fallen. Forest Children were descended from the Fallen. Hell is the land of the Fallen. We know that the Fallen exist. Why can’t someone exist to fight them?”
“But the Councils-”
“What do they know?” He gesticulated wildly and said, “Seriously! The Council Wars ended seven hundred years ago. All we have now are just weakened copies of them. They’re nothing more than snake skin after it’s been shed. The Council, the first one, was the one that ordained the Hellwalkers, the first ones.”
She said, “I don’t know. There’s something about this that doesn’t seem right.”
He stood and groaned. Turning his back to her, he scanned the titles of the books. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe that’s the problem. It seems right but it doesn’t seem to fit. You have the solution but you don’t know how to get it.”
“That’s it!” Samo stood and shouted again. “That’s it!” Before Kia and Kiara could respond, he ran out of the library again.
Tales of the Inventor's War 