OUTSIDER - Chapter 1

I have revised Kansem 2: OUTSIDER, making the beginning chapters more engaging, smoothing out some awkward language, and adding some fun tidbits throughout the book. The first version had too much info-dump, too much backstory. Nobody cares about all that. In the old version of chapter 1, the vision didn't come until after 3 pages of backstory and conversation. Now we get right to it. So here is the revised first chapter. Let me know what you think.

© 2021 Joel M Smith

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

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CHAPTER ONE

The vision wasn’t expected. There’d been no indication it was coming. Hell, there’d been no indication visions were even possible. Visions were only a thing in fairy tales and kid’s movies. And given that Jake was the kind of person that liked to know exactly what was going on, it was understandably upsetting when the vision came and unceremoniously added itself to the growing mental list of SHIT JAKE DOESN’T KNOW.

He’d been standing alone in the comforting darkness, trying to make himself relax. The wide stone veranda behind Wriedt castle was pitch black, and there was no visible moon in the Kansem sky. Even the stars were hidden by passing clouds. Hidden, safe, Jake concentrated on his body, and his breath, and his chi, and tried to forget the events of the day.

Breathing in, he brought the energy up from the ground through his feet and in from the air, focused it and channeled it through his lower dantian, the spot two finger widths below his navel. From there the energy flowed out to his limbs, and then back to the dantian. And then, on the exhale, the spent energy was expelled out with the breath.

Breathe in peace and energy, breathe out tension. Breathe in life, breathe out death.

He stepped out, his arms coming up into the Tai Chi posture called Brush Wild Horse’s Mane… and the world disappeared. And not in a good way.

He was in a void. Nothing existed, not even his own body. He wasn’t falling, he wasn’t drifting, he was just there, a consciousness alone in the exceptionally not comforting dark.

What the hell? Did I do this somehow? Shit! Hello? Where am I?

He tried to thrash with arms he didn’t have, tried to shout with a throat that didn’t exist, but nothing happened. Far away, something came into existence. He couldn’t make it out at first, but it came nearer. Jake saw it rushing toward him, faster and faster, now bigger than he was, now bigger than a castle, until he couldn’t see anything but the bottom of it.

Come to me, a voice said in his mind.

And then he was back on the veranda behind Wriedt castle, panting and sweating.

“What the hell was that!” He just barely managed to not scream the question.

No one answered. He was still completely alone. Nothing had changed. The cold breeze of the Kansem night still blew across his face. Looking behind him, Jake could still make out a few small lights coming from the glass windows in the stone castle.

Damnit! Every time I turn around I trip over something I hadn’t known! Do I really suck this badly at planning?

Eight days ago he’d brought his friends from Earth to the world of Kansem for a trip that he’d been planning for two years. He’d researched pool-traveling and the world of Kansem for years, and he had thought he’d prepared for everything. And yet, the second day they were there, one of them had been abducted, the rest of them had to chase after her, and it all culminated in a fight in the Wriedt castle throne room.

Shaking, Jake raised his arms into Brush Wild Horse’s Main again and tried to resume his breathing. Immediately he was distracted by tingling pain in his left hand.

There’s no hand there, idiot! he told himself. Ignore it and breathe!

He drew breath in, counting to five, then let it out, counting to five. In, out, just concentrating on the breath and the counting. His body moved through the Tai Chi form with quiet power. Gradually everything else faded away and it was just him and his breath as he glided through the movements, building his energy.

Some people called it bioenergy, the Chinese called it chi, the Japanese called it ki, and people from India called it prana. As far as Jake could tell, it was all the same thing. It was the life energy of the universe, and the exercises allowed a person to channel more of it through their body for a short while.

The throne room flashed into his mind and he faltered, his arms freezing in place. He saw the descending axe severing his hand from his body, and saw it laying lifeless on the krahn’s map table. Squeezing his eyes shut against the memory, Jake stumbled over to a patio chair and leaned on it for support. No… distract…

He forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another. He looked down at the chair, concentrating on details. It had close fitting slats for the flat seat, and spaced slats for the reclined back. Most of it was a brown hardwood, but it had inlays of something like stained cherry, and there was an intricate blowing leaf design carved into the top slat of the high back. The wood had a finish on it, probably oil sealed.

Six slats for the back, four smaller slats for the seat. Uh… raised arm rests, with a gentle curve at the front. The um… the legs are bronze, and are twisted square rods, paired to match on each side of the chair. There’s no visible nails or fasteners…

His heartbeat slowed as he concentrated on describing the chair, and his breathing eased.

Wait, it was pitch black a minute ago. How can I even see the chair?

Looking up he saw a man standing silently, holding an oil lantern.

“H-hi, Maurits,” Jake managed.

His friend stepped forward from where he’d been waiting and put the lantern on a small table next to the chairs. Without a word, Maurits sank into one of the patio chairs, and Jake dropped into the one he’d been leaning on. For a long time neither of them said anything.

Maurits was tall and looked to be in his mid-twenties, with wide muscular shoulders and large hands. He had medium length black hair, and dark, deep-set eyes. By contrast, Jake was a bit shorter than average, and had short, sandy blond hair. He looked to be only eighteen, but it had been him that had shown Maurits the wonders of the rings and Wood, not the other way around.

They sat in the darkness for a few minutes, not speaking.

Finally Maurits said, “I know you’re working through a lot right now, but this is boring.”

“We both just almost died,” Jake retorted. “You even more than me. Isn’t that enough excitement for a while?”

“Welcome to life as a soldier,” Maurits said.

“I’m not a soldier. I never have been.”

“Which is a good thing. You’d suck at it.”

Jake held up the stump of his left wrist. “You can’t tell, Maurits, but I’m flipping you off.”

The man chuckled and then sobered. “The pool water really can’t heal it? I thought it could heal anything. Any sickness, any injury.”

“Not so far.” Jake settled back into his chair. “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

“You only took a half drink. What if you take a full drink of the pool water? An entire mouthful?”

“I can’t do that. You know that. And even if I could, it wouldn’t replace an entire hand.”

“You’re sure?”

“Reasonably sure. It only seems to replace a little bit of flesh, like an eyeball, or a fingertip. Which is great if you’re missing an eyeball or a fingertip. Not so great if you’re missing an entire hand.”

“Is there… I don’t know, anything else in the Wood that would help?”

“I don’t know.” Jake shrugged. “But I guess I’ve got plenty of time now to investigate.”

“Five years, give or take,” Maurits said. “But… you told everyone that Vicky will die if she goes back to Earth right now.”

“Well, she took a full drink of the pool water, so…”

Maurits snorted. “How are you going to break the news to her on the real reason she can’t go back?”

“I… well… I just…”

“You don’t know, do you? You, the great planner, don’t have a plan?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet,” Jake said defensively.

“Well, you better figure it out quick. You’ve only got a few days. I’d say maybe two at most, before she notices.”

Jake groaned and closed his eyes. The immediate danger of Krahn Wriedt was past, but the remaining problems might be what killed him. Not literally of course, but he’d wish he was dead.

An object appeared, small in the distance.

Come to me. I can help you, a voice said.

There was nothing around him. Darkness surrounded him on all sides and the only things that existed were the voice and the thing approaching him. It grew rapidly until he could see the symbols, stacked vertically. It grew bigger and bigger, rushing toward him. Somehow, it wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t moving toward him, but rather something he moved toward, like an island, or a planet. It was a destination. It was a place where…

“Hey! You ok? Jake? Jake!”

Jake’s sight cleared and he became aware of Maurits looking into his face and shaking him by the shoulders.

“Yeah, I’m- I’m alright.”

“What the hell was that? You just… left! Just staring into space and…”

Jake cleared his throat and blinked away the afterimage of the symbols. “That was… I’m not sure. I need to show you something. Hold on.”

Jake reached under his seat and retrieved a notebook. It was hardbound with blank pages and had cost him more than he’d spent on his clothes for this entire trip to Kansem. Paper, and the binding process, were a premium commodity in this backward society. He’d been using the notebook to jot down his thoughts, sketches of the cities, and a rough map of what he knew so far. He wouldn’t win any awards for his artistic skill, but it still helped to have it down where he could see it.

He brushed rainwater off a small table for holding drinks and snacks, rubbed it a little with his shirt, and then opened up his notebook to a blank page. He drew quickly, the stack of symbols clear in his mind. And the symbols looked familiar. He was sure he had seen at least part of it somewhere.

“You sure you want to stay here?” he asked as he worked. “This place is so backward that books are rare, paper is expensive, and worst of all, no internet! I could probably put this series of symbols into a translate program and have an answer in seconds, but no, I’ve got to draw it, and ask you, you’re not gonna know…”

“Sure I miss everything on Earth,” Maurits said. “But I don’t miss the wars and the random school shootings and the racism and the hate. Things are simpler here. There’s one religion. There’s one race, so everyone looks like me. Except for the white Northerners like you. Or, you know, like you’re pretending to be. And people help each other for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do. I’ll trade cell phones and cat memes for that any day.”

Jake snorted. He actually liked the diversity of his home in Kansas City. There were many cultures and races, and always something new to learn or a new food to eat. Here everything was the same no matter where you went. Almost any place you ate had the same things. The only difference so far was what the nobles ate versus what the commoners ate.

And Jake didn’t look like everyone here. He was pale, at least when he wasn’t as suntanned as he was at the moment. Most people here looked like Maurits and Vicky, with light brown skin and black hair. There were some with brown hair, or even red, but never blond like Jake’s or Melissa’s. Supposedly people to the far north had skin and hair like his, so he always said he came from there. He’d never been there himself.

But I guess I can understand Maurits liking the uniformity, given where he grew up.

Jake held up the book for Maurits to see. The guard took it and studied the page.

“Where did you see this?”

“In a vision, just now. It was bearing down on me like a moving mountain, and I heard a voice saying, ‘Come to me.’”

“A vision? Really? You… had a vision?”

“Hey, I know how it sounds,” Jake said. “But look around you. You’re on an alien world. You’ve been healed by magic pool water. Does a vision really seem more farfetched than that?”

“Ok, good point,” Maurits conceded. “But where did the vision come from? Who’s telling you to come to them?”

“I have no clue, and I don’t know why the visions are starting now. Are the visions part of traveling with the rings and the pool water, or are they part of this world? Or… or are they a hallucination? Am I hallucinating now? That would be just perfect. My brain is broken and…”

“Hold on there, Jake, don’t spiral. I don’t think you’re hallucinating. If you were, the symbol would be random nonsense, right? But most of this looks like what they put on churches here. You see the weird T, the messed up E and the kinda B looking thing. That’s the symbol for the First Son. But I’ve never seen the symbol on top.”

Jake breathed a small sigh of relief. “So, not a hallucination, and the vision seems to be about this world, rather than the rings and the pool water. And if the symbol is about the churches here, that at least gives me a direction to go. I will-”

“You’ll what, Jake? You can’t just take this to a priest and say ‘hey, I saw this in a vision’. You can’t let them know we’re not from here.”

“Everyone’s so nice and accepting here,” Jake argued. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“If you don’t know about the religion that everybody knows about, they might decide you’re an Outsider. They could brand you as one, and I mean literally brand you. Any Outsiders that make trouble, they brand them, and anyone with that brand has to be out of the city by nightfall.”

“Have you ever met an Outsider? How do you know they are so bad?”

“I’ve not only met some, I’ve fought them. The people here are mostly peaceful, but the Outsiders will attack towns or traveling groups. They’ll kill people, or kidnap them. They attacked traveling parties just down the road from here when I was on guard duty. We had to run out to fight them off. Believe me, you don’t want people thinking you’re an Outsider.”

Jake was silent for a long time. It was the same problem he always ran into here. He should already know everything, so he couldn’t ask. But maybe, if he could figure out where he was supposed to go, this voice would have some answers. Maybe they could explain some of the strange things about this place.

Vicky might like to come, he thought. She doesn’t have anything to do here. Melissa’s going to be queen, and Tom’s going to be a guard, but Vicky might want to come with me to explore, even if we’re no longer together.

They’d broken up just an hour ago, there on the dark terrace. Vicky had said she didn’t know who he really was and couldn’t be with him anymore. He’d had mixed feelings about it. Mostly glad she was secure enough to stand on her own now, but a little sad. He’d never loved her, but he was fond of her.

As a last gift, he’d given her what she’d wanted since her first day on Kansem, her own fret. It had started raining then, and the two of them had just sat in silence, listening to the rain splatter on the ground and the wooden awning above them. When the rain had stopped, Vicky had gone up to her room to play with her new fret. Just like he and Maurits, Vicky wouldn’t be able to sleep for the next six days, since she’d taken a drink of the pool water, but she hadn’t wanted to stay in Jake’s company any longer. He didn’t blame her.

He and Maurits continued to sit in silence as the long night dragged on. Occasionally one of them would say something, but mostly they just sat and looked out at the dark garden, lost in thought. Jake wondered a lot about what they all would decide to do, now that they had to stay on this planet. And how were they all going to tread the thin line to keep everyone from figuring out none of them belonged here? And the question he was dreading the most, how was he going to break the news to Vicky on the real reason why she had to stay?

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