Ancil“There are some things that are just best left unanswered Jed. This game is all about spreading lies and conspiracy. The truth is hard to come by these days but on your journeys I want you to remember one word that will connect all the dots in the end and expose all the lies. Capital I, capital B, capital I, capital S. IBIS.
“IBIS?” I repeated, confused. I couldn’t make anything of it at first but I knew that I saw the word already somewhere and it wasn’t in a bird book.
“IBIS,” Sam repeated. “When things don’t make any sense just remember IBIS. Project IBIS.”
“What is it? Like a code?”
“You’re smart, you’ll figure it out.”
I tried to make sense out of what Sam was saying but when I couldn’t I just said, “You should come with us.”
“I can’t. I need more of the antidote before I make a full recovery and that may take a couple more days, probably weeks. I don’t want to keep you back from finding your friends. If you need me, feel free to visit. I’ll be here for a while.”
“We’ll visit. We’ll all visit,” I said.
“Good.”
“I’ll go check on the others outside.” I said, backing out the door.
“Jed. Wait!”
“What?”
“I think it’s important for you to know that there is a traitor in your group. Back in Arima someone was communicating with the Red House and tipping them off. Someone sent a message to Jeremy. That’s how we got caught. It wasn’t me”
“You think it’s Sara?” I asked.
“Sara is a rude, inappropriate wreck loose but if it’s one thing I admire about her is her loyalty. Her loyalty to her friends and family is something that I can’t even emulate. Sara’s a lot of things. A lot of bad things but if it’s one thing she’s not is a traitor. I don’t think it was her but my advice to you Jed is this: DON’T TRUST ANYONE!! NOT EVEN YOURSELF!!”
***
The evening grew old. There were only so many hours of sunlight in a day and it was running out. I went down the stairs looking for the others and I found them just finishing up with the douens. Their swords were only bloody at the tip and their sweat overflowed. The evening sun was hot and the humidity didn’t help.
“I think that’s all of them,” Jinx said.
“Yeah. I think so too.” Ronald confirmed.
Jinx came up to me and asked. “How’s Sam?”
“She’ll live. She’s not coming with us though. She says she needs more time to heal.”
“Doesn’t matter. She would only slow us down anyway,” Jinx said.
“But she did give me a gift,” I said, showing her the grenade.
Jinx grabbed it and said, “The wretch wasn’t completely useless after all.”
“I say we could use that to blast away large groups of jumbies,” I said.
“Yes exactly. I think I’ll keep it,” Jinx said.
“But it’s mine,” I said.
“I don’t trust you with this. Not after you slaughtered an entire village with your bare hands.” Jinx said.
“But I didn’t………”
“Just let it go Jed,” Sara said, putting her hands on my shoulder. “Let it go.”
