The Last Philosopher: Part One

Further than possible

The cooling desert made him shiver. Like a broken clock, the desert was only the right temperature for a minute twice a day. At least it wasn't as dark as he'd feared. The clouds were blotting out the stars, but even in the dusk he could make out a shape on the horizon, a vertical sandstone cliff. That would be his first way point. But the most important point was that it would take a good long while before the warden knew he was gone.    

He was positive — although it felt negative — that he would soon be craving the comforts of prison life. Well, if he survived that long. Herschel liked a good understatement, but to describe this trek as just 'difficult' was too little statement even for him.

"This first desert is just the appetiser; the Khmur will be the real test. I've never heard of anyone who crossed it on foot."  

It was almost time to go, and while his mind was awake, his legs were still asleep. So, he took comfort in over-thinking, focusing on the problem of Zig-Zig's largest gaggle, the Escè. With them, one had to be careful about even mentioning there was such a thing as the outside. Because they weren't above needling someone for expressing the wrong idea. And even with the encouraging their needling, the gaggle needed to justify their abusive philosophy. This was done with one simple question: 'How can we know what we know?'  

"Simple but effective," he said. "To an open mind it can rationalise almost anything."

And it's surprisingly difficult to keep me open while unexpectedly being jabbed with little needles, his mind added.

Even, so the question itself was valid, but they used it to spread fear and uncertainty. Herschel recognised the method from his youth in Bilib, as a kind of in-justice, the idea that justice was whatever was 'in' as in popular, or just confirmed things people thought they already knew. The Escè were convinced that reality wasn't just an overrated illusion, but an actual illusion, like a shadow on a wall. And even if it wasn't, nothing mattered anyway. Still, it wasn't until after Herschel's thought experiment that he started seeing them as the warden's unwitting lackeys. Now, he couldn't see them any other way. It was another thing he hadn't told the Socks.

We couldn't tell them. They would've tried going after them in debate and the Escè would have turned them into pincushions, his pity thought.

After deciding to leave the only place he had ever felt at home, his first instinct was just to get away from the prison. Later, he decided to head back to the familiar eastern shores of Sojurut. He'd spent a large part of his youth as a hermit in the bandit infested Eastwood. The thought of once again running for his life through those waist-high ferns made his frown nostalgic.

He'd guesstimated, a word he was proud to have coined, that getting there would mean crossing most of the continent. Herschel wasn't familiar with this side of the world, but his hermit days had educated him in living off the land. And he had a knack for being hard to track.

The little he knew of the western nations came from the kind of evil hearsay that develops around anything unknown. As a younger man, he'd questioned all speculations. But that was before he came to Zig-Zig and saw lizard-women in the scaly flesh.

"Of course, seeing shouldn't be confused with believing," Herschel quoted Soc-to to himself.

But getting manhandled and imprisoned by Akri made it harder to contradict their existence. It also made dismissing other rumours about the west more difficult. There were all sorts of stories. Some even claimed the living dead roamed somewhere in the far north-west. But even to his open mind living dead seemed like an oxymoron, and he'd dismissed it as altogether moronic. Yet, all the stories had one thing in common, that the west wasn't known for its hospitality.

We should avoid anyone clever enough to give us up to the warden, his caution thought as he liberated himself into the harshness of life.

His legs shook from all that crouching. His sandals, dripping with wet muck, kept sticking to the dry ground, leaving behind a few wet poop-prints. He turned to look back at the dark prison. There were no alarms, no sign that anyone had noticed.

Genuine genius, his planning thought.

"Eww!" Herschel replied, because the cold, sticky slime that covered his body smelt horrible.

Now now, it's all natural you know, nature is decay, his ecology thought.

A few minutes from the sewer exit, he threw himself head-first into the cold ocean waters. In the green moonlight, he scrubbed with whatever was handy.

What he hadn't noticed was the voyeuristic rock formation that crept after him down the beach and was now watching him bathe.

We're free! The last free philosopher. That's the important thing, his priorities celebrated.

"And I don't know that more distance from the warden means more safety," he tried negotiating with himself.

No, if we could, we'd go further than possible, his resolve was having none of his nonsense.

And it was foolish. He could do nothing less than get as far away from the warden as possible.

Since the prison library had a suspicious lack of maps, he had no idea what the cliff he headed to was called. Or that Zig-Zig was in the perfect spot to discourage escapes. But as he walked away, Herschel and his resolve went right past the ingenious rock that was almost certainly clever enough to give up his position. Not that Trolls were known for being clever.