The Isbjørn

Thirty-nine

John returned with the last light of day. Eyne, their guide abruptly appeared moments later, taking a moment with the guards before ultimately turning to John.

With his stock of curly black hair concealed  in the hood of a tattered jacket, he looked like a lost child. He claimed to be 20 but  John had his doubts.

His first question was more off putting than his young appearance. “Why do you want to go through Lagrange?” he asked in a thick accent, working out the words in Terim.

It was suddenly clear why finding a guide had taken so long, the regime was set on sending someone who spoke their native tongue. Ironically, Terim was John's second language along with Daire and Aranea. Sri used it as her primary language only because she had lost Saespanic when she did not use it.

"We're just touring around," John returned. This visibly spooked Eyne and reasonably so. Lagrange, in recent weeks, had gone from bad to worse. It was a place of immense peril, the epicenter of an increasingly violent war that had no end.

John did not want to tell Eyne their true intentions, doing so would reveal too much.  He did not want to get the boy into trouble by saying too much.

“Tour through Lagrange? You are crazy,” he said. He looked at John quizzically for a few moments, as if he was trying to get the measure of the psychotic man. His eyes turned to the rest of the group with the same curiosity.

There was only one way to end the questioning. John moved to his horse where the saddle bag was properly secured and dropped a wad of garring into the boy's hand. The best thing about a world currency was mutual understanding of wealth. "I prefer eccentric," he said flatly.

Despite Eyne's clear displeasure, the party numbered to five took off immediatly. Enough time had been lost. Traveling for ten hours rather than 12 and pausing for just three, Aranea suggested traveling for another six before their next stop. John won out, suggesting they play it by ear instead.

Eyne rode on the back of John's horse until Sri retired to the inside of the carriage around ten o'clock. John rode close beside the guide, making pleasant conversation in Saespanic along the way.

In time, Eyne loosened, becoming very voluble when John switches to his native tongue. John learned the young man was a law student from a city outside of Lagrange, but since the demonstrations began, he had not been able to attend college in the city. Where he lived in Besus was home to just over two million people, right in the heartland of Saeva, right off the doorstep to destruction.

But no longer; since April, when the rebels took a foothold in Besus siding against economic injustice and Saeva's armed forces replied with guns and more repression. In the months since, the city had been under siege. Most of his city was under total military lockdown. "No one can go out- everyone stays at home. You can’t walk around most days; it’s dangerous.”

He went on to share the scope of the death- the mass killings. Everyone knew someone who had been killed or injured either directly of indirectly by the rebels. Just yesterday his mother had seen a body in the street, and she had been crying since.

John could not come to grips with the severity on words alone. "Do you mean districts outside of Lagrange?" He asked, certain he had lost something through the quick talking.

Eyne became all the more insistent, frustrated with his inability to get the message across, or John's blatant denial: “It’s everywhere. You will see.”

All the same, Eyne had been luckier than most. For the last few weeks he had been offering himself as a guided for travelers between Lagrange and Besus, even traveling as far as the sea. It was good money that would help pay for school when  he went back. "If I go back." He was a smart young man who saw the dangers in the shift and John respected him until he heard his last declaration.