49-To Bear Witness

“Who’s going with you?” Cliff asked when he announced this plan. James wondered if the lawyer still felt excluded despite being given his own, equally important task.

It was reasonable that Cliff might feel excluded this time. James was deliberately excluding him, since Cliff’s boisterous interpersonal style could complicate any negotiations with the other camp. And with James the current power in their own camp, proximity to him could be instinctively recognized as valuable and a good proxy for one’s status in this group.

“Just two others,” James said. “I wanted to bring the least threatening looking people possible. I figured Alan and Mitzi. They’re both older, no offense, and they look harmless, as compared to me. I’m a big, bulletproof Black guy who’s now over six feet tall. I need all the harmless I can get.”

“No offense taken,” Mitzi said, slightly coldly.

“I also like that, secretly, you can blow them all to kingdom come if necessary,” James added to mollify her. “And I figured that the husband and wife combination would show that we value continuity with the traditions of the pre-System world.” James was mostly just bullshitting now.

He did indeed want Mitzi for her firepower, but he wanted Alan to come along mainly because he knew Alan would be annoyed if he wasn’t in a position to protect his wife, and because James had just promised him specifically that he would be included in James’s next dangerous outing. Hopefully this wouldn’t be dangerous, and James would have fulfilled his promise.

The secondary benefit in James’s mind was that Alan would be better able to advise him on future diplomacy with the other camp if Alan had met them himself, although James believed he could handle it even without advice.

“And if it turns out they’re unfriendly?” Cliff asked.

“Then we run,” Alan replied quickly. “Correct, James?”

“Yeah.”

“The two old timers are going to make a sprint to get away,” Cliff said. There was no question in his voice, but James detected a hint of sarcasm.

Alan suddenly jumped back, then he turned and ran into the trees without looking back. He moved with the speed and suddenness of a much younger man.

Cliff and James watched in silence, while Mitzi stood by with a small smile on her face.

Alan walked back up from out of the woods, only a single bead of sweat visible on his forehead.

“I’ve been investing, ah, a lot of my free points into Agility,” he said breathlessly.

“Same here,” Mitzi added.

“Oh yeah,” Cliff said. He sounded distinctly unsurprised and unimpressed.

Should I be glad they’re prepared for this eventuality, or troubled that they’re so concerned with being able to run away? James thought. He ultimately fell on the side of finding it funny.

“I guess that’s how confident they are in my protection,” he said finally, snorting with laughter. “Alan can hop away like a frog now if we’re threatened.”

“Alright, fine, whatever,” Cliff relented. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, guys.”

Alan and Mitzi looked at each other, and James thought he and they were thinking the same thing: If I find myself wondering what Cliff Rogers would do in my situation, I’ll know I’m in real trouble!

“Sure, man. Of course not!” James said.

“When do we leave?” Alan asked.

“We want to go soon,” James replied. “Before the sun gets much lower. We don’t want to travel in the dark, after all.”

“We’re really not taking anyone else?” Mitzi asked.

“The smaller the group, the easier it is for me to provide protection,” James said. “We’re well balanced with a Mage, a Healer, and a close-up fighter.” He lowered his voice. “And no one else in the camp besides Cliff is strong enough yet to be a close-combat asset. I used Identify, and their levels have stagnated. Chava really did them a disservice by keeping them in place the last couple of days. From what I’ve seen, both the monsters and the other humans in the forest are only getting stronger.” He turned to Cliff. “I’m relying on you to fix this. A couple of those people who were out fighting in the front with you have some potential. I’m hoping you can bring it out.”

Cliff seemed more genuinely pleased with his role at that. “You can count on me!”

And, after a few more preparations and farewells to Chava, Camila, and Sierra, James led his mini-party out of camp.

The walk from their camp to the other was uneventful. A couple of hours of nature hiking.

James had chosen to dress down, in effect, wearing some of his backup basic Orientation gear rather than the improved items and weapons he had obtained from his spider slaughter. He didn’t want to give the impression that he was Attila the Hun, come to wipe out the group they would likely be encountering. If he needed it, he had the rest of his arsenal in his magic satchel.

James, Alan, and Mitzi covered a lot of ground without seeming to suffer much from fatigue. It was amazing how the System had changed their collective physical fitness. Before, this would have been a challenging walk for James to take alone. Now, even the senior citizens were keeping up.

James himself was barely thinking about the walk, instead using his energy to contemplate Anansi’s challenge.

I have to find him off the edge of the map, James recalled. Does that refer to a place in this Orientation or out in the world? If it’s back out in the world, where the hell is the edge of the map? The terrain is being altered somehow by the System, so old maps won’t apply anymore, probably, but is the edge of the world changing specifically? Do I need to go to the Land of the Rising Sun or something?

This would be much easier if the answer was somewhere in Orientation, but so far, he had seen no hint of a place that could be called an edge of the map. The existence of the forest was a big problem in that regard. If there was some natural feature that could be considered the edge of the map, like the beginnings of an impassable swamp or desert or mountains, then he would at least have a clue. But the trees had made it impossible thus far for James to see much into the distance, and there didn’t seem to be any mountains around at least.

Finally, the three drew so close to the source of the smoke that James had to pull himself back to the present and shelve Anansi’s challenge for later.

“Here we go,” James said quietly.

The delegation of three stepped through a group of trees, and the outlines of another group of people came into view. At first, things appeared little different from the camp that James, Alan, and Mitzi had left behind.

A dozen or so men and women could be seen from their vantage point. They were relaxing or performing chores outside, cooking and laundry mainly. The sun was high, so James imagined it was around lunchtime for them.

These people didn’t stand out generally from their appearance, except that they were all dressed in white.

Most wore long, flowing garments, while other wore loose-fitting white shirts and pants. Something about this struck James as rather ominous. The color white was associated with purity in so many world religions, yet it was also a color of mourning in some cultures. And there was something austere about this group perhaps requiring its members to wear white. Did it mean they were hyper-religious?

“Let’s stand back and watch for a little while,” James said in a stage whisper. He sensed, rather than saw, Alan and Mitzi silently nod from his flanks.

A pair of the white-clad people were carrying bundles of wood, and as James followed them with his eyes, he finally saw the massive bonfire that had led him and his group all the way here. There was a depression in the ground, perhaps a pit, circular and wide enough for a large man to lie down in. The people in white fed the wood into the fire.

Above the pit loomed a tall statue, with the bonfire positioned in a gap between its legs. The statue had what appeared to be the head of a bull, with the torso of a man, two angelic wings, and four humanoid arms. Two were outstretched to its sides as if ready for a fight, the other two grasping in front of the figure as if expecting a gift.

The figure appeared to be stone, but James thought that shouldn’t be possible in the brief time they had been in Orientation, unless the statue somehow predated the human presence there.

Made by another force entirely, suggested a voice in his mind.

Can gods act so blatantly in the Orientation? James questioned. Putting up statues of themselves? The god he presumed was Anansi had barely spoken to him, and yet that had seemed to cost some effort, come with a strict time limitation, and required that he take over the body of one of his subjects. Maybe Anansi could have achieved the same end result without going to all that trouble, but James doubted it.

Is this god more powerful, then? James felt like he should recognize the figure who stood above the fire, but he only vaguely felt that the horned figure standing above the pit of fire was probably ominous. Really wishing I paid more attention to world religions when I took AP World History right now.

Another pair of figures in white approached the pit. They were notable at first because their white cloaks were smeared with red. Then the eyes were drawn to what they held between them: the bound, bloodied, nude figure of a young woman.

James couldn’t see the victim’s features well, only that she was a tall, slender brunette with pale skin. He thought he saw the slight swell of early pregnancy on her stomach.

As she was pushed forward, James saw long lines of red that someone had sliced into her back.

“Please! No! I repent!” she screamed

“Guys, I think we need to get out of here,” Mitzi whispered.

James and Alan were both transfixed, mouths agape, by the sight in front of them, and Mitzi’s whisper broke the spell.

“Yeah, let’s get the heck out of Dodge,” Alan agreed after a moment.

James managed to stop gaping at the atrocity unfolding before him for a moment, to turn and look at Alan. But rather than replying, he found his head involuntarily swiveling back. The young woman had been tied to a stake, back turned to the hidden watchers.

The long gouges out of her flesh were on full display. They looked worse, deeper, than they had when she’d been held between the two men.

Whoever cut those strips of flesh off her back could just as easily have killed her, James thought. Easier, even. They’re keeping her alive to torture her. His face twisted into a snarl.

Alan was grabbing James’s arm and gently shaking him.

“Is this really so much worse than everything else you’ve seen here?” Alan whispered urgently. “We really have to go.”

One of the men in the clearing had taken a whip from a bag that hung from his waist, and James’s eyes were stuck on that. He retained enough presence of mind to consider what Alan had said. He’s right, of course. I’ve seen much gorier scenes than this. I’ve created gorier scenes than this myself. But only when I had an enemy I needed to kill. This is cold-blooded. Fucked up.

He had sometimes enjoyed fighting, killing, and even drawing out a fight, yes, but outright torture? He’d restrained himself even when dealing with someone like Chava.

Another reason this bothered him so much suddenly hit him: She looks like Mina. It was only a passing resemblance—tall, pale, long-haired brunette, slight hint at possible pregnancy—but he hadn’t seen his wife in days.

He used Identify to get her name. Just humanizing her more before you run away, an inner voice chided.

Isabelle Rose, Lv. 9

“I want to save her,” he found himself saying quietly.

“Jesus Christ, James!” Alan groaned quietly.

“I’ll get you guys to safety first,” James said.

“Goddamn right you will,” Alan grumbled. “This is insane!”

“Let’s retreat, then,” Mitzi said. “I will gladly return with you in a supportive role if needed.”

James could feel some tension in the air between husband and wife to either side of him, but he ignored it. There was something different all of a sudden about their surroundings. It was hard to put an exact definition on the change, but his Predator’s Senses and Situational Awareness were blaring a warning all the same.

“Quiet, guys,” James hissed. “Something’s wrong!”

Both of them froze, and then James pulled them roughly to the ground. Natural Camouflage! He prayed the Skill would somehow protect the two older people from sight too, though he couldn’t imagine how, since it involved his own vital signs diminishing drastically. At least there was a fair amount of shrubbery around to conceal them.

The feeling of wrongness shortly manifested in noticeable movement around the three. People walking through them.

“I don’t see a goddamned thing around here,” one voice grumbled.

“The Prophet said the ward in this area was set off. They’ve never once been wrong so far. Just stay focused on finding the intruders, Jeff.” This second voice had a rather strong accent, but James couldn’t place the country.

“Half the time, his wards go off for beasts!” the first voice objected. “If this is another bloody Rodent of Unusual Size, I swear I’m gonna—”

A third voice chimed in, cool and calm: “Gentlemen, I think we might be right on top of them.”

A silence fell, and James’s imagination filled it in with the worst case scenarios. Three men staring directly down at him and the old couple, easily penetrating his camouflage and silently, perhaps telepathically, calling for backup. A dozen enemies or more gathered, all with weapons trained on James and his people, ready to let loose but waiting to shoot in sync to do as much damage as possible before they could move to evade.

James focused and tried to become even more nearly invisible than he had been before. Even his consciousness seemed to change, as if he was slipping into meditation.

Then James felt a hand roughly grab and pull at Alan. The old man didn’t clutch onto James at all, so his camouflage remained undisturbed. Thank you, Alan, James thought. I’ll get you out of this soon!

“Well, lookie what I found here,” the voice they’d heard second said. “One humanoid intruder. Score one more for the Prophet, eh, Jeff?”

Then James felt Mitzi pulling away from him too, but this time the movement was much smoother.

“You missed one,” her voice pronounced firmly. “It’s two intruders.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Jeff’s voice groaned. “Lady, why didn’t you stay hidden? Now we’ll have to—have to—”

“Wherever my husband’s going, I can go too,” Mitzi replied. She couldn’t keep her voice from shaking slightly.

“Jesus Christ,” Jeff repeated. James thought the voice sounded a bit familiar now that he’d heard it a few times, but he still couldn’t place it exactly.

“No more of you in there, are they?” the accented voice asked.

“Ain’t nobody here but us chickens,” Mitzi said, her voice self-consciously light but still shaking.

And thank you, Mitzi. James’s mind immediately kicked into gear planning how he would rescue the two of them once the guards led them away. As long as these freaks didn’t immediately sacrifice them to whatever god their Prophet followed, he thought he could probably sneak into the camp once the sun got low.

He was already inside this Prophet’s wards, so hopefully they would only be set off once—by their arrival—rather than blaring out a constant signal with his continuous presence. If that was how it worked, the wards might be set off again on their way out, but the three would at least have a head start. Maybe he could wait until most of the camp was asleep, too.

“Alright. Well, we’ll take you to the Prophet,” the third man said.

“Why are you lot here anyway?” the accented voice asked. This one seemed dangerous to James, altogether too interested in gathering information for his liking.

“Just looking for a safe place and people to gather with,” Alan said. “We saw your smoke, and my wife and I thought that was here.”

“No frickin’ way!” the accented guy said. “You two old timers made it across the forest by yourselves? The same woods we traveled through? The forest full of critters bigger than a man, with mandibles the size of my head and claws the size of my arm?! I don’t believe it! You have to be jerking my chain! We literally wouldn’t have made it ourselves if not for divine intervention.”

One of the others, James couldn’t tell which, made a shushing noise.

“What?! It’s not a secret, and they need to know why I’m calling bullshit on their story.”

Smart, James thought, but not smart enough to know that when you interrogate more than one person, you separate them so they can’t cooperate on a story.

Mitzi spoke: “We had other people with us. The spiders got them. Big, black things that came out of the trees. I think we’re the last ones left.”

Well done, James thought. Next time, we should have an agreed upon story in case this contingency happens.

“You satisfied now?” Jeff asked. “Can we get out of here? We’re sitting ducks if anything that isn’t human comes out of the woods. What if they led those spiders here?”

“You have no faith in the Prophet’s protection, do you, Officer?” the third man asked. He sounded amused.

James realized suddenly where he recognized Jeff’s voice from. Officer Jeffrey Ross. James had worked with him from time to time when he was a prosecutor. He was a good guy, or so James had always thought.

“I don’t think it’s infallible, if that’s what you mean, Kassim. And I don’t think it’s heresy to say that either,” Officer Ross replied, an undertone of contempt in his voice. “You let me know if the Prophet proclaims otherwise.”

“Let’s get out of here, as Jeff was saying,” the accented man said. “I don’t like lurking here in the woods either, Kassim.”

“Fine, fine.” Then this Kassim took a step, and James instantly had a problem. “What the hell is this I’m standing on?!” A foot had landed right on top of James’s right arm.

“What is it now, Kassim?” Officer Ross’s voice was exasperated. “Forget how to walk?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s–”

“He’s stepped on something,” the accented voice pronounced, intrigued.