Arn shifted around the supplies he had gathered over the past days preparing to escape. Among these things, he counted waterskins with odd colorings, provisions, and coverings for the cold that had set in once the stones outside no longer warmed the city.

  Coughing broke his concentration, and he turned towards Amala who rested on and under the warmest cloaks Arn could find. Even this sanctuary, these archives, could not keep out the freezing nature of the mountain peaks. Arn himself had dawned a white Khadi shirt and black wool bottoms to complement his two yakskin cloaks. The fabric restricted his movements as he walked to Amala, but it covered his scar and skin from the chill.

  Once at her side, Arn still searched her trying to understand what was wrong. Amala on the outside, perfectly healthy for a young girl. For two weeks now though, Amala had been coughing up dark spit and unable to keep her body from spasming. She was his charge, and he would get her out of Bharat alive if he could help it. He stayed with her until her fit subsided.

  All he had done during the time they were staying in this building was prepared to carry her down the mountains as best he could. Staying in Shangri-La— or what remains of it— was waiting to die. That demon creature had not come back, but it would only take so much to finish off Amala and leave Arn alone.

  So he searched for the provisions he later gathered, first noticing the coolness of the stones the instant he ventured out into the burned city. Water was first on his mind, but fear of black fingers drove him to search for warm clothing and things to make small fires. The former took time to find, but the latter was everywhere. Corpses were everywhere, bones lining the streets and the area where Arn and his charge had very nearly been cast into pyres. All their weapons had turned to ash.

  Water and food came next, and each day he found enough to sustain them as well as prepare for going down the mountain. With his constitution, or rather the life-giving power of his goddess, Arn did not need nearly as much to survive. Today, he believed he could make it down to Bactria before heading west to Parthia, avoiding Persepolis. It would be a cruel fate to escape from here to end up in the den of a dragon.

  During the quieter times when Arn stayed out of the cold and watched the fire he built in the archives to warm Amala, he searched through old texts and read some of them. What power he had from Aletheia, the greatest of these was Arn’s ability to understand and speak all languages. Each text, no matter the script, was something he could understand.

  There were western books in Germanic and even Hispanic scripts. The language of the Old People and the Ancients. Scrolls from Bharat, Han, Persia, they were all present. Of all the known great empires who could shift the balance of the world, the only place that was not present was Babylonia.

  Among these stories, he read about gods with many hands, a god with horns offering his hands to an apothecary, and a man who went blind on his way to Damascus. Most of these tales were incomplete with torn manuscripts or smudged ink. Moths or other vermin had chewed through them over centuries if this archive has been in Shangri-La since the beginning. It mattered little to Arn who used them to pass the time.

  Now was not the time for reading, for the smoke outside was gone. Arn packed his bags that hung on his sides. He took Amala up on his back while she slept and covered her in cloaks and blankets before leaving the archives and heading toward the western gate. After several minutes of travel, the inner city collapsed and made a noise like thunder. And Arn ran as fast as he could, failing to look back and see that the only building remaining was the archive.

  Once they had gotten far enough from the destroyed center, the outskirts within the wall became sparse with dead trees and brush who a few days ago might have been alive. Amala coughed, so Arn slowed his pace to not irritate her. It mattered little with the wall approaching, except that the ice wall which Arn passed through was now nothing more than a pile of stones fallen to pieces. The ice that covered them was gone, in spite of the freeze that ate at the weary travelers.

  Upon one of these rocks was a man of some sort. Its eyes stared directly at Arn, and as Arn approached, its gaze became heavier.

  “You there.” Arn called out, preparing to place down Amala if he needed to fend off this man. “Who are you?”

  “I could ask the same of you, good sir.” The man stood up and got down from the rocks, closer so that Arn could see him.

  It wore the finest silk, its clothes flowing and long and without creases. Its shades of green, red, and black were deep and vibrant unlike anything Arn had seen from East to West. To the ends of the earth, no man should look like that. Even its face, unrecognizable by sex, yet beautiful and without any blemish. This thing was like a man, yet, Arn knew what he saw was not truly human.

  “Do not come any closer.” Arn yelled out. It stopped. A guttural fear began to set in, making Arn search for a safe place for Amala. “I do not know who you are, but leave us be.”

  “What a curious find.” The man said, remaining still. “It has been a long time. I will be watching you.”

  Just as Arn finally accepted he might have to place Amala and force this man away, a shrieking hiss ripped through the air. The man that Arn was watching dissipated into black sand and scattered into a westward wind. They were once again alone.

  Arn gripped Amala as best he could and hurriedly passed through the stones out onto the mountain side. That eerie feeling that began with Kali and remained through the man at the wall echoed in Arn’s mind as he trudged along for many hours with Amala resting on his back.

  Before midday, Amala woke with another fit, causing Arn to slow down.

  “Where am I?” She asked in a rough and scratchy voice. For such a young and small girl, Arn was shocked at how she sounded. He did answer her.

  “We are leaving Bharat.” He said.

  “Where is mother?” Arn breathed deeply before he answered truthfully.

  “Your mother passed away at the behest of her goddess.” He felt Amala’s arms tighten around his shoulders rather than dangle as they had. “I am sorry.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Mother is a liar. She told me that father would not die.”

  “Everyone dies. Your mother had her reasons.”

  “What reasons?” Her voice got harsher and louder ever so slightly.

  “I do not know. I am not your mother.”

  “I don’t—” Amala started coughing, some of that black residue getting on Arn’s shoulder. She wiped it off quietly once the fit subsided after a minute. “Does your god do that?”

  “...”

  “Does your god tell people to die?”

  “Perhaps.” Arn said. “I do not know if my goddess has more followers than me.”

  “Maybe she told them all to die?” Amala softly said, resting her head on the left crook of his neck.

  “I do not think so. My goddess, Aletheia, cares deeply for me. I know that to be true. In many ways, I believe she loves me.”

  “Mother said our god loved us. What do you mean?”

  Arn walked quietly thinking about what she had asked. He felt Amala shudder and try to constrain herself. Such a young girl to go through so much. Arn was at least twice her age when he faced a trial such as this. Above all, in spite of the loss of her city and mother, Arn knew it was the lack of faith in her god that would eat at her.

  It is said that all men serve a god. And on that day so long ago when the gods gained greater power than they ever enjoyed before, it became clear that wisdom was true. Arn had never known a time where he was not told to worship and keep to his first god. Without the spectre of death coming for him, he likely still would be.

  What could he say to such a young girl? He thought back to his childhood in Aeterna and thought of his mother. Her voice was almost forgotten, the words were still there but the chime of her love and singing he could scarcely think of. Arn remembered that he loved being told stories. To this day, he still did.

  “How about I tell you a story?” He said, readjusting Amala’s position on his back so she would not slip down. “Before you were born—”

  “I’m seven.” Amala interjected. Why she did this, Arn did not know. Perhaps, it was the want of a child to have someone know things about her.

  “I see. Still, this story starts nine years ago. That is when I was brought before the Emperor of Han as a master of languages. I could and can talk to anyone in the world.”

  “Really?” Arn could feel Amala’s head raise in interest.

  “Yes. I believe that this was the first showing of Aletheia’s love. As you can see by my skin, I am not from here. Not even close. I would be completely alone if it was not for her.

  “Now, when I was with the Emperor, I met a pretty girl named Li. Like everyone else, she looked at me like I was exotic. An animal from another world. But one day she saw that nasty scar I have and learned I was afraid of thunder.”

  “Thunder is scary.”

  “It is. It reminds me of how I got my scar.” Arn gathered himself as snow gave way to make him stumble. “Li talked to me during the storm, trying to calm me down. She stayed—”

  Another one of Amala’s fits overtook her. Arn quieted and tried to slow his walking again, while Amala clutched at her coverings and hacked up more of the black spit. Once it was over, Arn let her rest her head.”

  “I’m sorry.” She said quietly, almost lost among the sharp winds which blew every which way in this range of mountains. “I’m cold.”

  “You will have to bear it for now. Better to be cold and moving than resting in that tomb we just left. You’ll make it. I know it.”

  Amala’s silence and rest beckoned him to continue his story.

  “I just wanted you to know from this story that Li cared for me. In my weakest moments, she stayed close and did not leave me. I took comfort in that. She was kinder than anyone else I met in Han. But that kindness, it only stayed when the storms rolled in. When I was alone but not in fear or pain, she left me.

  “I do not want to scare you, but in the past I killed people. An executioner for the throne. When those times came, Li turned her head away from me while everyone else watched as I ended someone’s life. I knew, though maybe not outright, that Aletheia loved me more than she ever would. And I knew that I found solace in Li, but I did not love her.”

  “How did you know?” Amala asked.

  “Because I am still alive. Without my goddess, I would be dead many times over.”

  “Does she really keep you alive?”

  “You have seen my scar.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Arn almost stopped his trek before he thought back. Amala was just a girl. That short time on the scaffold was not about him to her. All she knew was the man in gold and the fires and her mother’s screams.

  “Trust me. I would be dead from that wound if Aletheia did not want me alive.” He said solemnly. “Your people said that you worshiped the god of life. I think I do.”

  “I don’t think a god of life would tell mother to die.”

  Soft sobs filled Arn’s ears. His shoulders began to feel the drops of warm tears. His heart dropped. Such a young girl left to be alone with a stranger in the cold. Searching his mind desperately for a way to comfort her, Arn continued on slowly and in silence.

  He could not think of anything. Stopping could mean death. Moving Amala from her warmth could kill her as well. What more could Arn do than talk to her, if that was even something that could ease her burden? With no other course, Arn took a different path of stories.

  “How about I tell you a different story?” Arn asked, turning to see a glimpse of the tearful girl in the corner of his eye. “We have a long way ahead of us. I would like for you to hear what I have to say.”

  Amala did not answer, so he continued.

  “Since I am from the eternal city, I think I could tell you some stories from there by the sea at the center of the world. There’s Caesar the Fool, the Man-Bull with strings, Paulos the Blind and—”

  “A— a fool?” Amala asked, trying to calm herself down as only a child can. “Who has stories of a stupid man?”

  “Oh but this man, he is the greatest fool in Aeternian history. Would you like to hear it?”

  He felt Amala nod on his back.

  “Once a long time ago, there was a man called Caesar. He one day fell into a river and pirates picked him up. They told Caesar’s masters that they wanted a mere 10 silvers to free him. Caesar said ask for 100, but his masters paid neither. They sent back a note saying to keep him. The pirates dumped him in Gaulia and told him he was worth nothing.

  “Enraged, Caesar gathered a host and marched through a river to fight his masters, planning on taking the money to pay his own ransom. The masters and Caesar fought and Caesar was hung upside down by an olive tree when he lost.

  “When the masters returned home, they found all their money had been stolen by the same pirates who took Caesar hostage. And so they cursed Caesar and his god into the dirt, and that year was called Neptune’s Triumph.”

  Arn realized he had not heard one of Amala’s fits in a while, so he turned his head slightly to see the girl resting in a deep sleep. Perhaps, his story had been only of interest to himself.

  In truth, he told it for himself, he thought. Arn felt like the fool who marched through the river, except he climbed through mountains. A small part of him wondered, however, who was the bigger fool. The pirates said that Caesar was worth nothing, yet when the story ends, the masters paid everything for him.

  As he trudged on while the sun began to disappear, Arn told himself again and again as he went west to Aeterna that he would not be Caesar.