The Liar's Most Useful Tool: Chapter One "The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool" -Stephen King Chapter One: Exodus and Exposure The dark towers rose up into the distance, punctuating the reddening horizon like barren, branchless trees. Sobena tried not too look back at their darkened silhouettes again, knowing as she did that they couldn't follow her. Not even they could live up to her fear-driven imagination. No, they stayed immobile; not exactly dignified but neither were they resigned. Sobena was shocked at their height: the earthen ceiling of the dungeons had led her to imagine, in her endless idle hours, that the towers were squat and impregnable. Her surprise at their stature had lingered, even as she hiked up into the surrounding mountains. Size, she mused, was all about perspective. So was pain, she reminded herself as dirty, bruised fingers itched at the still-bleeding head wound she's earned that morning. Pulling a blood-smeared thumb into her mouth, Sobena remembered how Plamen's wooden club had pushed in on her skull. She remembered his mad laugh, as if he knew that the end was so very close. Sobena bit her thumb, anxious for a distraction from the head wound and the memories it prompted her to relive. Onward, Sobena. Onward, she thought. Towards what, exactly, she wasn't sure. She wasn't born in the tower, she knew, but bereft of family and history, she had little clue of where to travel towards. She wasn't heading anywhere, she realized, but away. Always away. Even in shackles, even underground, she was running away. No more memories, Sobena. No more, she thought. The air was warm, she noted with some measure of relief. She wouldn't freeze to death, even if wolves or bandits or...they caught up with her. Noises. There were noises in the distance behind her. Sobena turned to look, despite her efforts to avoid the motion, and saw that the Northern tower had caught fire and was beginning to collapse. Tower North. Her prison and her home. And for all her wishes and ill intent, all it took was a rogue lick of flame to reduce the hell to ashes and shame. Look away, Sobena. Keep walking, she thought. The alpine trees smelled clean and fresh in her lungs, their needles dried and piled beneath her bare feet. Scraps of cloth wrapped around her bloody toes, but they did not protect her from the stabbing annoyance of pine needles working their way into her arches. Sobena hobbled, badly. The sky deepened into a restful blue, and stars appeared in contrast to the darkness. Sobena looked up, and was struck by their brilliance. When had she last seen stars, she wondered? She had known a cellmate, for a time, who could read the stars and divine meaning from their arrangements in the sky. But Sobena hadn't paid him any attention, dismissing him for his ravings. She regretted her pride as she saw only foreign shapes and patterns in the stars. The glow from Tower North's inferno radiated in the growing dark. Sobena walked faster, away, for it seemed as though the burn was creeping closer in the heavy night. The orange of the flames began to blur with the bright white of the stars, and Sobena knew she was injured more profoundly than a little blood in her hair. Her pace slowed as pain washed over her scalp like warm water in a bath, and eventually she stopped. She held her shaven head in both hands and expelled a quiet moan. A fallen tree, hollowed out on one end, seemed a fitting place to rest a moment. Sobena was determined not to sleep. She had seen strong men felled by a blow to the head, seen their unnatural fatigue lead to a sleep that never ended. She only desired a rest. Sobena lay down. The stars seemed to coalesce and draw apart in shapes and patterns that began to make more sense, if only she could hold on to the slippery tails of inspiration as it slithered through her throbbing brain. Eventually, their light began to fade. Sobena's eyes, no longer responding to the light, closed shut in long-denied exhaustion. She fell into sleep, never noticing as Tower North crashed down to the earth, thrusting a small cluster of embers into the pine forest. MEANWHILE Lasota heard the fire before he saw it. Sprinting between the trees, his footfalls barely leaving impressions on the soft, browned needles on the forest floor, he heard the trees crash to the ground. He heard the fire crackling with mad glee as it consumed the living wood. Lasota felt his stomach drop with dread as he heard the inferno raging towards the Dissenters' camp. He holstered his pistol and changed direction, running towards the camp, towards his father. Ice-blue eyes regarded only the route before him, ignoring the scenery around him. It was this keen intent that led Lasota to trip over the limp and dirty arm carelessly laying on the ground. Lasota tumbled forward, all balance lost, and had to stretch his arms before him to spare his head from the moss-covered stones in its path. He exhaled a small grunt upon impact, and quickly rolled to his side, pistol out. His heart pounded, his ears heard the fire approaching, but he saw only a slumbering woman before him. His foot had clearly stuck her arm, Lasota reasoned. He observed the reddening marks on her forearm and noticed the scuffed ground directly before her. Still she slept. Recovered, Lasota resolved to bring this strange woman to the Dissenters, and to let his father decide her fate. She was too dirty to be a Monarchist, but Lasota could not trust her appearance alone to acquit her from all suspicion. Yes, he would bring her to his father. Lasota stood once more, and lifted the woman over one shoulder with ease. He was strong, he knew this, but she had the sharp and bony frame of a prisoner. Starved. Light. He straightened his back and once more began to run through the forest. Father would know what to do.