The New Era Chapter 7

IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NEW ERA
Livius escorted Rodens into the room. Jistap and Bakes rose from their seats to greet the two. "Where you able to retrieve his ship?" Jistap asked.
"Lauto is returning with it as we speak," Livius answered.
"Excellent. You may go, Livius." Livius bowed and left.
Jistap turned to Rodens. "Now, why don't you tell us what possessed you to do what you did?"
"What's going on? Why am I answering to you instead of an assembly?"
"No doubt you have many questions as to the events that transpired in your absence. I'll make a little deal with you. You tell me your story, I'll tell you mine."
"Sounds fair I guess." Rodens paused, "I'm not sure I want to talk about what I did though. It's not a pleasant memory."
"I should hope not!"
Rodens drew in a deep breath and began. "I want you to know I'm not proud of what I did. I guess it all started at that meeting we had, the one where Bakes first introduced the danger the Icelers where in. I liked the Icelers, but I was inflamed with love for the Watchers. My patriotism wouldn't allow the Watchers to compromise their power to help the Icelers. By losing our secrecy when we shipped the Icelers to the North Pole, we were greatly compromising our power.
"From the moment the vote was totalled, I knew inside it was fake. Then, when I found out that Hans was helping to lie to the public, I was filled with rage. My best friend had betrayed me in order to further his own political agenda. Our president himself was corruption incarnate. Fortunately, I had discovered the problem in time to stop it, or so I thought. I never thought Hans would help unjustly imprison me, but he did. I sat their in my cell thinking, thinking that I would be left here forever, and that you, Jistap, would get away with this. The very thought pushed me into a rage that ultimately sent me on the killing rampage. I would have killed you, but I couldn't kill another Watcher, so I killed Icelers instead. Finally, when my anger had subsided, the gravity of what I had done began to weigh heavy on me. I came into a state of total apathy, went to Dishon, replicated a lot of valorts, and stayed drunk for as long as I could."
Jistap looked strangely at Rodens, as if Rodens were a five headed mutant. After a while he said, "Rodens, their is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you are a mentally unstable person, perhaps the most so in all of Watcher history. In light of your temporary insanity, I am going to allow you to live."
"What do you mean? There is no death penalty among the Watchers."
"There is now. I have taken over now. The city is in a complete dictatorship."
"Even you wouldn't kill a fellow Watcher."
"My army has already killed seven hundred. You will join the thousand that have been exiled."
"You son of a bitch!" Rodens lunged for Jistap, but stopped suddenly. "You're no better then I am. You call me insane, but we are to of a kind."
"Guards," shouted Jistap. Two guards rushed into the room. "Escort Rodens into exile."
The guards practically dragged Rodens out of the room, but as he was leaving, Rodens shouted, "we are two of a kind, Jistap."
As soon as Rodens was gone, Bakes turned to Jistap. "I must admit sir, I'm surprised you let him live. Rodens has killed over seventy Icelers for no reason. I was sure you would executed him."
Jistap smiled. "Bakes, I have a much bigger plan in mind. I know Rodens deserved to die, but he will serve me much better alive. Those exiles have been plotting against me ever since they were banished from the city. I know this sounds silly, but sometimes listening in on their conversations, I get scared hearing their plots, and what they will do when they get back in the city. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I'd sleep a lot easier if I could take care of them. Hopefully, Rodens will do that for me. The exiles are all united in their hatred of me. We'll see how united they stay once they have a mass murderer in their mists, who hates me as much as any of them."


The first and most obvious thing Rodens noticed when he first set foot on the Coler mountains, was the heat. The sun wasn't even out, hidden behind some clouds, but the heat was unbearable to some one who had lived in comfort all his life.
Taking a look around, Rodens was unimpressed by the scenery that would have been breath taking to anyone else. He did see something that caught his interest though, a village of roughly made shacks, about a half a kilometer away. Realizing that this must be where the other exiles where, Rodens walked over.
When Rodens reached the village, on one of the few flat spots on the Colers, he was surprised to see few people there. The village was practically deserted. After wandering around for a few minutes, he did meet up with one man. "Excuse me," Rodens said, "I'm a new exile. Could you tell me where everyone is?"
Rodens was glad that he did not know the man, who responded, "Well, most of the camp is down at the base of the mountain, gathering what food they can. Almost everyone else is swimming in Coler's river, the only cool spot there is on this mountain."
Rodens was not eager to meet the rest of the exiles, but his short time in Dishon had convinced him he was ill equipped to handle life outside of the city. He would have to stay with the rest of the exiles, which meant now was as good as time as any to get this confrontation over. Besides, he thought, a cool swim sounds pretty good right now.
Rodens asked the man for directions, and followed those directions to the stream. When he got to the stream, Rodens acted as if he had been exiled all year, by casually jumping into the river, and swimming with the other Watchers the rest of the day.


It was dark by the time Hans returned to the village. His shoulders ached from carrying the food all the way from the base of the mountain to the camp. He rested, leaning against a rock. Even at night, the mountains were still hot, and Hans began sweating just sitting. Before long, Hans began to realize how thirsty he was, and got up to go get some water. Water had been brought back from the stream by several of the exiles on their way back from the stream. Hans took a big long drink from the bucket, before turning to head back to the rock. The water had taken some getting used to by all the exiles, since it was not perfectly clean like that in the city, but the mountains were so hot that it still was refreshing.
On his way back to the rock, Hans thought he saw Rodens. In the dark it was hard to tell, but the figure he saw did look like Rodens. Hans dismissed the idea at first. "Rodens isn't one of the exiles," he told himself. Thinking further, however, Hans realized that Jistap would want Rodens brought to justice immediately, and this was probably the place Rodens would end up once Jistap was through with him.
Hans walked up to the figure, and tapped his shoulder. The figure turned around, face to face with Hans. Hans immediately recognized that it was Rodens, and Rodens recognized Hans. About a minute passed as both just stared at each other, and each was too lost in his own thoughts to speak. Thoughts of both happier times and horrible memories of recent events. Then Hans snapped. The pictures of the dead and mutilated Icelers filled his mind. He was filled once again with anger at Rodens for his atrocities. Hans punched Rodens across the face, and then hit Rodens repeatedly. A crowd gathered around the pair.
"Break it up you two," Mucius yelled. Aided by several others, Mucius was able to separate Hans and Rodens. Several men held Hans back, as he struggled against them. Rodens gave no struggle, but a couple men held onto him anyway. Mucius stood between the two.
"Let me at that son of a bitch!" screamed Hans, squirming to get free.
"Hans, you know better then that," Mucius replied. "The common enemy is Jistap. It is he we must struggle against, and not each other. We must work together in peace until we have defeated him. If you can't do that, we'll have to ask you to leave our village." Mucius looked like he was going to say more, but he stopped suddenly. He looked back and forth at Hans and Rodens, before saying, "what's going on? Aren't you two best friends?"
Hans had expected the Watchers to know everything by know, but Mucius reaction proved Jistap had kept Rodens exploits secret even now. Hans had told the other exiles nothing about the short time during which he helped Jistap, fearing it would disrupt the sense of unity. "I'm sorry Mucius. You're right, my actions were totally out of line. It won't happen again. I'd like to speak with Rodens for a moment, alone."
Mucius nodded to the other men, who released Hans and Rodens. The two walked to the edge of the village, neither speaking a word the whole way. When they reached the outside of the village, Rodens sat down on a rock and buried his head in his hands, while Hans paced back and forth, occasionally punching the air. After a couple minutes of this, Rodens looked up, and in a soft voice said, "Hans-"
Hans whirled around. "So, Jistap finally caught you eh? We'll old buddy I guess you won this one. You've managed to kill almost as many Icelers as we saved. I yield to your power."
"Hans please-"
"I can understand you were mad at me, mad at Jistap. Killing a hundred Icelers is a perfectly healthy form of releasing stress."
"Hans, listen to me. I'm sorry for what I did now. You don't know the guilt I'm feeling."
Hans' face softened. He looked sympathetically at Rodens. "I'm sorry Rodens," he said in a sweet tone. "I know you realize now that what you did was wrong, and that you're sorry. I'm sure your never do it again, so I'm just going to forget that you killed a hundred Innocents."
"Hans I'm not asking you to forget it."
"Then what are you asking me to do!" Hans grabbed Rodens by the shoulders, and screamed into his face. "You didn't stop to see what you did, did you? You just flew on right past your victims! I landed! I saw the dead, the wounded, the mutilated, the grieving! I saw it and I'm never going to forget it, or forgive you! Never!" Hans broke away, and began pacing again. After a few times back and forth, he turned to Rodens. "You leave this village by tonight, and I won't tell anyone what you did. I'll leave your name clean, which is more then you deserve."
"Hans, I don't know how to survive by myself in the real world."
"Learn."
"Hans please, you can tell them the truth if you want, but I'm not leaving the village. I can't make it on my own."
Hans looked into Rodens' eyes, and Rodens looked back into Hans'. Rodens saw in Hans' eyes a look of days past, when the two were best friends. "Rodens, please, I can't forget what you did. I can't forget what I saw. I can't be around you anymore. This village isn't big enough for both of us. If you don't leave, there's going to be an ugly confrontation."
Rodens nodded, a little bit of a smile appeared on his face. "Alright Hans, I'll leave tonight." Rodens extended his hand for Hans to shake. Hans thought for a moment, brought forth his own hand, but before it reached Rodens' he slowly brought it back. Hans looked at Rodens, and thought of all the times the two had shared together. "Good-bye, old friend."
"Good-bye Hans," Rodens answered, as he began his journey down the mountains.