Wind in the Hands (23 page)

“Let’s go back, near the walls. I’ll take the left, you take the right. We need to touch the stones,” the Stranger said to the girl. It seemed to him that the insanity was overwhelming, but he remembered that heard this very phrase in his tumultuous dream. “If you discover anything, tell me right away.”

They went backward, touching the walls of the tunnel; in a few minutes, the Bird cried:

“Come here! Here’s some cavity.”

“Step aside, please, let me see.”

The Stranger didn’t feel anything dangerous; he stretched his arm, found something inside the cavity and pulled it out.

“Do you have a lighter?”

The Bird delved in the pockets and took out the lighter. The thing they found was a lantern, with a plastic bag attached and two batteries inside.

“Good girl. You’ve found it,” the Stranger turned the lantern on, a ray of bright blue light flashed.

“Will the lantern help us?” she asked happily.

“I believe it is the only thing that can help us.”

They walked for about half an hour. The Stranger inspected the floor of the tunnel. He saw the taut wire, warned the Bird and after twenty more steps he found another one strained unusually high, they had to crawl under it. It repeated three times: every twenty steps he found the traps. He noticed this regularity and started to count the steps. Suddenly the light went off. The Stranger clicked the switch a few times and put the lantern inside the bag.

“Will we find the next wire in the twenty steps? Or is it a trap? You get over the system, make the next twenty steps but the taut wire is located in ten or thirty steps: broken rhythm.”

The Stranger sat down again, held the Bird and felt that she was shivering.

“Are you fine?” he asked, cuddling her.

“How are we to go on without the light?” she asked scarcely keeping back tears.

“If you want to cry, just cry. The tears will wash away fear, pain and hurt. The torch helped us: thanks to its light, we cheated death several times. And we noticed the relevance: there is taut wire every twenty steps. There is a good chance that it is the same all the way.”

“Let’s burn the lighter after the next twenty steps, there’s not much gas in it, but it can last for a while,” the Bird proposed.

“It won’t help us; the lantern light was blue for a reason. I think it’s done on purpose to see the wire.”

“What are we to do?”

“I don’t know yet. It’s difficult for me to tune in.”

“How are we to go on?”

“Let’s sit with eyes closed for a while. Let’s take some rest. The help will come.”

Chapter 35. Time of the disguised

The Soldier ran swinging his arms and punching the air. He despised and hated himself and didn’t try to hold back tears. He hadn’t been crying so bitterly since childhood. “How could I? Why? Yes, there’s death. I faced it lots of times. Why my courage left me? Why did I panic? I don’t know.” The Soldier subsided into a walk and humped himself to calm down. He was going back to the Seer and didn’t want him to see his state.

The Seer was sitting in the shadow of the off roadster, smoking and pouring sand through his fingers. The Soldier approached him slowly, lighted up a cigarette with a shivering hand and said serenely,

“I betrayed him. I didn’t go with him into the death tunnel.”

“The test created by the rebels to recognize the prophet? I heard about that tunnel. You are not go through it or are you a challenger too?” the Seer smiled ironically. “You would definitely fall into a trap. Both of you would die.”

“So, don’t you think I am betrayer and coward?” the Soldier asked and for the first time looked into the abyss of the Seer’s eyes.

“No. You’d made the right decision when you trusted your feelings. There’s no need to be upset about that,” the Seer reverted eyes.

“Do you mean when we believe our feelings we believe the God and that’s why it is right to follow what we feel?”

“I’m not sure. I try not to go that deep. Feelings are the attributes of the soul. However I’m talking about the cultivated soul that knows what is better for the human being. You can call it the intuition. Still there’s another option and I don’t like it at all: we are under control and do everything by the will of someone else. We are in the grasp of demons, elements that control our feelings, create these or those situations. The world of magic. If you ever meet the Medium, maybe she will tell you about it.”

“And you… What do you believe in?”

“I think we are controlled by the very structure of the soul. The truth is often balancing between the different concepts, even the contradictory ones.”

“Will the Stranger forgive me?” the Soldier didn’t feel like philosophizing.

“He will, of course. He can realize the best case scenario,” the Seer gave him a countenance.

“Thanks. You really helped me. Tell me please, will the Stranger go through the tunnel?”

“It’s not that easy. I’m trying to find out the traps disposal to help him. But a strange thing is that I don’t feel anything,” the Seer answered sullenly.

“What do you mean? Have you lost your ability? Are you tired?”

The Seer sneered and threw the stub away.

“Restricted area. Every time when trying to enter the tunnel in my mind I bump into the wall I cannot pass through. I have no idea who was able to set up such a powerful protective field. Anyway, the Stranger doesn’t need my help. I see him in the City, it means, he will escape the traps.” the Seer analyzed his senses. “Someone is helping him. Someone was able to go into the restricted area. By the way, what do you know about the tunnel?”

“A lot of rumors. The warriors of the desert can keep the secrets. As far as I know there are no our informers among them. There was a talk that the tunnel was mined by the Pyrotechnist, a famous specialist in explosives. As if he saw an angel in his sleep and he revealed him the ancient hidden tunnel and ordered to make a testing area for the prophet candidates. Then the same angel showed him what traps are to be installed. Soon the Pyrotechnist died and his grave became the sacred place.”

“Sounds insane, but rebels-like. I don’t understand why the Stranger decided to participate in this gamble. But I believe he had no choice. He was forced to undergo that stupid test. How did they treat him?”

“They made an agreement: he goes through the tunnel and the warriors go to some peacemaker, the Hermit.”

“What for?” the Seer started to pace up and down nervously. “Who is the Hermit?”

“I don’t know,” the Soldier shrugged. “He must be one of those who left the world and lives in the desert.”

“Perhaps,” the Seer thought to himself for a moment and shook his head as if throwing off some illusion. “The Stranger is not a rebel. Suppose he will go through the tunnel, then what? Will the wolves turn into sheep?” the Seer seemed to talk to himself. “Then all of them will die. The ideology and the organization will be broken, and the money flow will stop. Maybe, when the Stranger shows them the miracle, they will name him as the prophet. All religious communities need a prophet, mage, authority: it raises the status of the community, making the ideology stronger.”

“The Stranger won’t go with them. There was enmity in the air. You are right: they forced him to go to the tunnel,” the Soldier stopped talking, and then continued with anger. “They are dangerous fanatics. Sometimes I doubted, I thought: we should not shoot them, they are devoted to their idea, and they don’t touch the civilians. The warriors of the desert say about themselves: only we are righteous, only we are the true servants of the God, holy remnants, and all the rest are unworthy to occupy the land, they are to be removed like fruitless trees. Avengers and justice fighters! And under that slogan they killed their political opponents and took money for murders. But now I know for sure, we should have killed more of them. One must not come to an agreement with beasts of prey.”

The Seer kept silent. While the Soldier was talking, he felt something, compressed like a spring and jerked.

“The Stranger will pass… They will meet him with knives near the exit… Hurry…”

Large beads of sweat rolled down his face, breathing heavily he sat and asked for water with weak voice.

The Soldier scurried, found the bottle, opened it, slopped some water and passed to the Seer. The latter satisfied the thirst and said,

“We have to drive to the City, find the exit from the tunnel and neutralize those who want to harm the Stranger. I need to conserve power. You will drive,” the Seer said while making himself comfortable on the backseat of the car.

“We’ll get to the nearest station, take a train and, I guess, we’ll be in the City in about four hours,” the Soldier was happy: he was back in rotation.

“We’ll make it. Don’t drive too fast,” the Seer asked in a tired and a bit irritated voice.

The head of the security service received the report of the Soldier’s disappearance and immediately instructed to find him, bringing in the auxiliary resources. All the attempts appeared to be idle; they had not found the Soldier. The informatory in the Seer’s house reported that the owner escaped in hurry at night, but the observation patrol saw only the tall beautiful woman leaving the residence in the morning. It was the famous Medium, by hearsay she was the ex-lover of the Seer. The Chief decided: if the Seer left the house in hurry, he got the scent of danger. And if he is going to leave the country, that’s even better: less trouble. That sort of people is always unpredictable and dangerous. It’s bad that the Soldier had disappeared, but, perhaps, he is busy with the Seer. The Chief turned down the request of the authorized operatives to look after the woman of the Seer; he decided that she was of no interest for the case.

The Seer made himself up in the car: he attached long beard, put on the cap, and hid his eyes behind the black glasses. After he settled in the coupe, he pulled chocolate and juice out of the bag. He ate with the Soldier, then closed his eyes, twisted his nose as if smelling something and said dwelling on the words:

“The friend of ours is in this train.”

“Ours?” the Soldier asked. “The Medium?”

“Yes. Wait…” the Seer stretched, the coach numbers floated in his mind on the high speed, he marked the ninth, this figure pulsed as if screaming: “It’s me!”

“She is in the ninth coach, stands in the passage. Bring her here.”

“What if she doesn’t want to?”

The Seer looked at him in surprise.

In the ninth coach the Soldier saw the familiar slim figure and tried to come up as quiet as possible. The woman turned quickly and threw a hard eye on him, but she could not resist smiling when she recognized the Soldier.

“Believe it or not, I’m glad to see you. Is your friend here?”

“I’d say, it is your friend here,” the Soldier answered smiling too. “He wants to see you.”

“I see,” the Medium said with disappointment. “The Stranger would come to me himself. After all, the old mole decided to go out into the world.”

“Are you going to change?”

“Sure, wait here. But I would let the Stranger in,” the woman said coquettishly.

“And I have left him,” the Soldier turned to the window.

“Has something happened to him?” there was alarm in her voice. “I am anxious about him, but he’s alive, I can see it,” the Medium said, she turned the Soldier back and looked into his eyes.

“He is alive. Change the dress. I’m waiting.”

Entering the coupe the Medium felt abashed but looked closely and sneered,

“So you become a clown too? The disguised are all around!”

“It’s time now. Time to hide behind the masks. The hard time.”

“I understand. Sorry. Where’s the Stranger?”

“He is in the death tunnel. Tries to go through it.”

“Is he going to become the prophet of the desert warriors?” the woman was puzzled.

“Everything is much more complicated. Do you know where the exit from the tunnel is?”

“I guess. It’s somewhere on the outskirts of the City, bit the exit is watched over too. Is this tunnel really so difficult to go through?”

“If I was physically able I would probably go through. Perhaps one more person, except me, is also able to, but as far as I know, he left the world for the desert. Retired,” the Seer said thoughtfully. The image of the person who discovered his ability appeared in his mind and he remembered the words of the Soldier. “The Hermit, the Hermit… The Stranger knows him. It’s a small world,” the Seer said waggling, suddenly he shuddered, “I will meet him soon. He must be really old now, yet I’m not young as well.”

“I’ve heard about the Hermit,” the Medium interrupted. “As far as I know he doesn’t leave the desert.”

“The Hermit will leave the desert and head to the City. It means something really important is going on. We need to sort it out, until it’s too late,” the Seer was nervous. “There’s no direction. All questions I asked were wrong. There was no visualization, I didn’t hear the voices. It’s hard to work now,” he complained.

“I can try to tune in, but I also need the standing point,” the Medium proposed. “It’s difficult to do in the train. Let’s go to my place, we’ll have some rest and try to see. I will look into my crystal ball and maybe I will see something.”

“You should go home and we are to meet the Stranger,” the Seer shook his head.

“There will be people who meet the Stranger,” the Medium disagreed. “If he goes through the tunnel he will become the prophet of the desert warriors.”

The Seer smiled ironically, but said nothing. He knew the world better.

“Can someone, except you, see the future inside your crystal ball?” the Soldier asked the woman.

“When I was a little girl I believed that everyone was able to, just look into the crystal ball and that’s all. But now even I can rarely see anything,” the Medium answered with a sigh.

Chapter 36. The Voice

The voice sounded familiar.

“Is that you?” the Stranger asked and envisioned the Hermit’s seamed face, with running and very bright eyes.

“Do not be afraid of anything. I’ll help you.”

“How should I go?” the Stranger asked.

“In forty paces there is a gap.”