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One more time, I pause and glance hesitantly toward the city. This is it, my final farewell. There will be no more seeing the reds, blues, oranges, and purples of the sky reflecting off of the city’s white stone walls and buildings. No more flickers of the fires that light the city at night. And soon, no more viewing the mist from high above the plains.
My eyes shift to the layer of fog beyond the cliffs. Though it has always intimidated me, I now look excitedly toward it. It hides many secrets, ones that will soon be revealed to me. I just need to be quick and cunning to evade those who pursue me, and that means leaving now.
I pick up my full pack, which is already prepared, but I do not put out my fire or gather what other things I have left, including another pack. I intentionally brought two heavy packs, which must have appeared awkward to the temple guards who escorted me out of the city. The second pack is a diversion, meant to be exhausted and left here to make the guards think I have hidden myself but have not left. Hopefully, it will throw them off or at least slow them down and provide me some extra time to slip away.
Shortly into my brisk hike up the mountainside, my muscles begin burning and my lungs begin gasping for air. Having never before trekked so high, I am surprised at how much different it is from simply running through the fields.
Over the last several months, I spent a lot of time training my body for the eventuality of leaving the kingdom. Of course, I never suspected that it would be so soon since my father was doing fine at the time, but I had just turned twenty-two years old and simply felt like I should be prepared. As part of my training, I would run through the fields that surround the city to build up my endurance. Although my father didn’t like me being so far from the temple, the residence of the royal family built at the center of Kalepo, anywhere within the city walls is fairly safe, and so he allowed me to do it after some pressing on my part.
The fields are a place of peace, at least relative to the loud, bustling streets of the city. They stretch around the kingdom on its eastern and southern edges, going all the way to the cliffs above the plains. Because they are within the city walls, these fields are protected and allow Kalepo to remain self-sufficient.
I enjoyed being among them. The aromas of grass and flowers would fill the air during the spring and summer, and in the fall and winter, the air was crisp and unpolluted by the smells of burning wood and food being prepared. The farmers and workers there also seemed to be a bit more pleasant than the average person in the city.
At the time, I felt like that’s what nature was like, well-mannered and organized, but as I enter a space between two mountains, leaving the view of the city and plains behind, I find that nature has no organization to it at all. Trees, plants, and grass shoot up wherever they seem to find space, making
many areas impassible. There are no paths, just whatever I can find that allows me through. And cliffs seem to appear out of nowhere, cutting me off and forcing me to backtrack and lose precious time.
By the time the evening settles in, I become distressed that I have not made the progress I had hoped to. Even though the guards have likely turned around for the day, I still somehow feel them closing in on me. The darkness that comes once the last sun sets makes me feel even more encompassed, and so I continue my hike through the twilight until I am completely out of strength.
Once I stop moving and try to lay myself down in the grass to sleep, the silence of the night becomes unbearable. Without the paranoia of my rustling footsteps helping me feel less isolated, I become enveloped by how alone I really am. Most of those I love are dead. The one still alive will have me killed if she ever sees me again.
These thoughts bounce around my head until I begin to sob uncontrollably. I miss my father, as much if not more than he does me wherever he must be. The priests teach us that there is some place where the dead go, a place where they can be with those they lost again. There, he will be with my sisters, along with my mother, but I am trapped here.
The tears don’t stop, but at some point I become so fatigued and
exhausted that I slip into a deep sleep, one that unfortunately only greets me with more anxiety. It is as though I am swimming endlessly through a body of empty, hopeless thoughts. It is so bad that when the light comes and I finally wake up, I feel as though I haven’t slept at all.
I nevertheless press on, reassuring myself that the burdens of loneliness will become easier to bear if I just give myself time to heal. Now that I am beyond the reach of the guards, I won’t have to worry as much about speed and can simply take my time and rest when I need to. If I can manage that, I tell myself, then my emotions will slowly calm down.
Midway through the day, I find a small pass that cuts west between two mountains. I decide to take it, knowing that I need to relocate the river that feeds the city if I am to find the lake my father spoke of. By the late afternoon, I reach the end of the pass and find a ridge overlooking the river.
The view of the river thousands of feet below is breathtaking, but so, too, are the quarries on its far shore. I heard much about them back in Kalepo, how they are necessary for maintaining the city’s structures and walls and that they cut deep into the mountains, but only now can I fathom just how much stone has really been taken. It seems like an entire mountain has been removed, leaving a recess in the mountain range that runs along the far side of the river. As I think about it, I realize that I shouldn’t be surprised considering the size of Kalepo and its walls.
The plateau Kalepo was built on stretches for miles before reaching the cliffs. That is how there can be enough room for the reservoir to the north of the city, the fields on the east and south sides, and the Warrior District and Great Stairway to the west. Kalepo itself sits in the middle of the plateau. I remember it taking several hours for me to run all the way around it. It is so large that I imagine it would take the stone of several mountains to build.
The Warrior District also would have required a great amount of stone. Although it is filled with much more open space, contrasting with the tightly-packed city, its walls are thicker and higher, particularly on its western side. These extra walls in part further insulate Kalepo from the dangers looming beneath the Great Stairway, but they also provide the Warrior Cult with some needed independence.
Prior to the civil war, the armies were under the direct control of the royal family, but because the queen and her sister used all of the kingdom’s forces to fight each other, there was no one left to guard the Great Stairway. As a result, the city was attacked by some evil and left in ruins.
To prevent this from happening again, the queen established the Warrior Cult, which is led by a small council that still must obey the queen in most cases, but also ensures that the festival and the duties of protecting the city are not ignored. That is why the Warrior District was constructed around the Great Stairway.
The sudden snap of a twig behind me causes me to panic and spin around, but there is nothing in sight.
“Hello?” I ask as I cautiously step forward.
The brush before me is dense, and it is hard to see. The closer I get, however, the more I feel that eyes are on me, crawling on me like a bug. Something is definitely there, though maybe I shouldn’t be so eager to find out what.
Before I can get any closer, the dark silhouette of a figure gets up and flees further into the brush and back towards the pass I had emerged from just moments ago. The swiftness of its flight frightens me, making me feel unsafe. Was it just an animal, or something more? I shudder at the thought and try to forget it as I turn north to follow the river from the high ridges above it.
In the hours that follow, I hear something now and again, but I press on, trying to disregard it and quickening my pace. As the suns set and darkness returns, ignoring the noises becomes an impossible task, so I move higher toward the peaks, concluding that I will feel more secure in an area with less trees and cover.
This works at first. The silence that follows is peaceful enough that I almost fall asleep, but then some rustling of grass brings my anxieties back. Although I conclude that it’s just the wind, I’m unable to really get comfortable again, though I eventually drift into a calm sleep.
I am awoken at dawn by voices somewhere below me. I get up and carefully survey my surroundings from a nearby cliff. To my utter shock, I spot patrols not far to the south. I duck from view before they can see me, confused as to why they have come so far, even through the night, to find me. Mariam must really be intent on catching me. Maybe I am wrong about her. Maybe she isn’t going to let me escape.
I no longer have time for fears or fatigue. I won’t be able to outrun the guards for much longer if they’ve followed me this far. I need to be swift and decisive until I reach the caves beyond the lake. My father trusted me with something important, and I’m not going to fail him.
Because I am so high up, moving quickly is much easier on my muscles, though I find myself becoming winded fairly quickly. Despite this, I push through the pain in my lungs as I reach the nearest peak and run along the ridge between it and another mountain further north.
