Chapter 2: 2: Essence of the Brown Bear

When Ember opened her eyes, her tear-stained reflection stared back at her in the carriage window. It was growing dark outside, and a smattering of raindrops was making its way down the glass. Beyond were the streets of the inner city, clogged with miners and factory workers on their way back to their highrise apartments. Help me! she wanted to scream, and an hour ago, when she had been an academy graduate, they would have. But not now—not since she had been branded with the affliction.

One last sob escaped Ember’s mouth. She gripped the plastic star so that its corners bit into her skin, trying to focus on the rhythm of the horse’s hooves. She glanced at the stiffed-back officials and took a shaky breath. She needed to calm down; she couldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing that they’d broken her.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

“Mendel,” one of the men replied. “Where all the Linnaeans go.” His tone, cold and cautious, made her lock her jaw. 

“Am I a prisoner?”

The men glanced at each other. “No… but you are in our care until we reach Mendel.”

Ember narrowed her eyes. They were wary of her, and with that came a degree of respect. “I don’t know anything. Can’t you help me?”

There was a long pause. “You must have learned about this in school.”

“I know that Linnaeans mutate, but I don’t know why, or how.”

He shrugged. “They are afflicted. Unholy. That is all there is to know.”

They’re clueless too, Ember realized. “How will I be treated?”

“That’s up to the Linnaeans.”

“Where is Mendel?”

The man gave her a look, making it clear that she was testing his patience. “South.”

“Thank you.” She settled back into the seat, giving up for the time being to consider what she knew. She didn’t believe that it was true. All she had was a scroll saying that she was afflicted—no physical symptoms, no family history of the disease, and no proof that her blood had really turned the serum red. It could all be a ruse, some attempt to free her spot at the university or sell her to the slavers at the border. 

Even so… she looked at the men again, noting their stillness and their strained faces. It was impossible to fake fear like that—those men had seen something, or at least they thought they had. It wouldn’t take much; Ciradyl was obsessed with Linnaeans. There had been whispers in her hometown, but in Ciradyl everyone knew the stories: a goat-man whose horns exploded through his head; a vulture-woman who fed on corpses until her bones became so brittle they snapped; and a wolf-child who sprouted fur and craved raw flesh. 

The carriage came to a jerky stop, and Ember realized that they had reached the boundary of the city. Ahead were Ciradyl’s great gates, ironclad and twisted into the shape of wings. She leaned forward to watch as a guard climbed down from the watchtower and exchanged a few words with the driver. The guard spared a glance at her, and hope bubbled up in her stomach; maybe this was all some mistake and he would order that she be sent back home.

The driver whispered something to the guard and his expression distorted with repulsion. Ember’s heart sunk as he backed away from the carriage, waving them through, and the gates ground open with an ear-splitting screech. In front of them was the dark expanse of the city’s countryside, silent and ominous like a sleeping beast. 

One of her captors swung open his window and leaned out to speak to the driver. “Run the horses hard,” he ordered, “and be on the watch for bandits.” 

The driver spurred the horses on, and they took off faster than before, the pounding of their hooves sending up clouds of dust. Behind them, Ciradyl shrank back over the horizon, its cathedrals and smokestacks lost to the dusk. 

***

Ember stirred from her half-sleep, her muscles aching from the hard carriage seats. A new dawn had lit the sky with orange and red. They had traveled through the night, past villages and caravans’ encampments. If there were indeed bandits, none had dared to attack a stagecoach with Ciradyl’s official seal. 

In the distance was another city, a mid-sized cluster of boxy buildings surrounded by acres of farmland. Ember recognized it as Draycott, the last town before the old forests of the south. They had covered at least one hundred miles since leaving Ciradyl. 

The driver pushed the horses to cover the last stretch, and they soon pulled up to an opening in the stout stone gate. “We’re stopping here,” one of the men grunted. “Stay in the carriage.”

As an officer approached, the men got out of the carriage and stretched their legs. “Welcome to Draycott,” the officer greeted them. His uniform bore the interlocking bars that designated him as leader of the watchmen. He eyed Ember suspiciously, then turned his attention back to her captors. “I received word of your arrival last night, and the… item from the west was delivered yesterday.”

“What is its condition?”

The watchman’s face contorted. “The mutations have begun, sir. My men had to change out every hour for fear of being possessed.”

There was a pause. “Yes, well,” one of Ember’s captors finally spoke, “it is our job to make the deliveries to Mendel. Please bring the afflicted as soon as possible.”

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The watchman looked at the men with admiration. “Of course, sir. I will have my men bring refreshments and change out the horses as requested. Do you require anything else?” 

“A stiff pint. I fear that we will not reach the forest until midnight.”

The watchman shivered. “I do not envy you.” With one last glance at Ember, he took his leave and disappeared behind the city’s wall. 

Ember shifted uncomfortably. Her throat was dry and her mouth filled with a taste like cotton. “I need food and water,” she forced out, “and somewhere to relieve myself.”

The men scowled. It was as though they had forgotten that she was human. “Fine,” the leader said, gesturing for her to climb out of the carriage. “You can go behind the wall. They are bringing bread and lard for you and the other creature.”

Ember slid out of the carriage, stumbling as her legs nearly refused to hold her weight. How mortifying, how utterly dehumanizing to be called a creature and told to piss in a bush. As she pulled down her old, sweat-stained work clothes, she grimaced at her own body odor.

When she re-emerged, Ember heard the sound of raised voices and turned toward the entrance to the city. There, being led by four guards like a convict, was a young teenage girl with a chain around her waist and a metal cage around her mouth. 

Ember’s body tingled with cold fear. Lord, what is going to happen to us? One of her original captors caught sight of her and waved her forward, and she pulled herself back up into the carriage, which was now fitted with two new thoroughbreds. A moment later, the girl was forced in behind her. 

Ember froze, every nerve in her body standing on end. She turned, slowly, to face the girl in the muzzle. Liquid shock coursed from her head to her toes. She knew, then, that it was all true—that there were beings that were neither human nor animal.

The girl was small but broad-shouldered, with light brown eyes that fixed Ember in a pensive stare. Her dark hair was thick and matted, and dense, short fur sprouted from her skin at random intervals. Behind the cage was a slightly-downturned mouth, bloodied and split by two inch-long canines. More than her appearance, she let off a quiet but powerful aura, like a wolf found slumbering in the woods. 

“She bit me,” one of the officers snapped, slamming the carriage door behind the girl. 

Ember’s captors eyed the newcomer warily, and one of them put a hand on the dagger at his hip. “Make haste,” he told the driver.

Noise filled the carriage again. The girl pushed herself up against the back of the seats with her arms clutching her stomach. Ember noticed that hat her limbs were scraped and bloodied and that she had no suitcase. “He hit me,” the girl whispered in a low voice. “That’s why I bit him. Because he hit me.”

Ember looked at her carefully. The girl was part wild, without a doubt, but Ember felt none of the fear or disgust that the men so readily displayed. “What is your name?” 

“Olga.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m fourteen,” the girl whimpered, and suddenly she looked very much her age. “What will happen to us?”

“I don’t know,” Ember answered honestly. “They are taking us to Mendel. They say that there are other Linnaeans there.”

Olga nodded. “I’m hungry.”

Ember leaned forward, tapping on the divider to get the men’s attention. “You said that you would feed us.” 

With a grunt, one of them slid back the divider and handed Ember a loaf of bread wrapped in paper,  a can of lard, and a single canteen. “I need the key,” Ember said, pointing at Olga’s muzzle. 

The man seemed to think about it. Warily, he slammed the divider back in place and slipped Ember the key through the bars. “You do it,” he snapped, jerking his head toward the girl. 

With a hint of nervousness, Ember fitted the key into place and let the metal cage fall to the floor of the carriage. “Thank you,” Olga said, wiping the blood from her mouth. The skin around where her teeth had mutated was red and pus-filled, a mess of swollen and infected tissue. Ember winced. She must be in pain, and she needs a healer before she loses the ability to eat. 

When it was clear that an attack was not imminent, their captor turned back toward the front of the carriage. They dug into the food eagerly, sharing the canteen between them and taking small sips to savor the sweet water within. Soon after finishing, Olga yawned and curled up in the corner. Ember watched her chest rise and fall for a few beats, then looked out of the window, watching as the hills flattened and the countryside turned green. 

So Linnaeans do exist. She ran her tongue over her canines, feeling the same dull points. They do exist, but am I one of them?