The Hunter's Gambit

by Nicholas McIntire

  “Who are you?” Aleksei demanded.

  North, Aleksei. North.

  As he dissolved back into oblivious slumber, Aleksei got the unshakable image of fierce, seeking emerald eyes.

  CHAPTER 2

  Wheat and Chaff

  “BOY.”

  Bael struggled to open his eyes, but it was just too hard.

  “Boy!”

  His father’s unmistakable rumble penetrated his fog of sleep, but he still couldn’t rise from the miasma of light and sound. Darielle’s visions haunted his every thought, every image a fiery brand searing his mind over and over again.

  “Toad!”

  The word cut into his oblivion, igniting rage at the insult in its wake, whipping up a conflagration so intense even his sister’s wicked trick could scarcely survive.

  Bael opened his eyes to find his Lord Father Rafael glaring down at him with seething eyes, so black that he couldn’t differentiate the iris from the pupil without concentrating. Bael just stared back. He’d always avoided his father’s gaze, but now he just stared back, studying the man. He, like his sister, had been so very fortunate to inherit the intense emerald eyes of their mother.

  At least that was one thing you couldn’t control about me. Bael thought bitterly as he stared into those mad, black eyes.

  Rafael took a step back and Bael could see the beginnings of discomfort in his face. “Woman!” he barked, turning away from Bael and marching away. “He’s alive and awake. Tend to him. My flock and my God await.”

  His father left the tent the same way he left every space, in a flurry of rage and black sackcloth. Bael found himself pitying the man for the first time in his life. Rafael was a servant of the Dark God, but he seemed to have found so little joy in his devotion.

  The thought brought Bael up short.

  Where had it come from? Had anyone heard it? Would he be whipped for his blasphemy? Were they listening to his thoughts? Could they really listen? Could his Lord Father? Was he listening? Would Bael be banished? Might it have been better if Darielle had killed him as she had surely killed Granny?

  But, then again, wasn’t he right?

  Marra drifted into view with a damp cloth and sat beside him, gently wiping his forehead. Bael wasn’t sure what purpose the action served, but he found comfort in the sentiment, if not the cool river water running down his face.

  Where had that come from? Such thoughts were….

  Bael closed his eyes tight, yet it was still too bright. The thoughts kept pouring into his mind, the aberrant, dirty thoughts. Selfish thoughts. Thoughts he’d never have dared to conjure, much less admit to before his sister’s arrival the day before. Or days. He really wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious.

  Bael realized that his mother had stopped wiping his forehead and he forced his eyes open.

  “Darling, am I hurting you?” she said, her voiced barely a whisper.

  He managed a crooked smile, “I’m sorry, Mama. No, it was nice. Thank you.”

  Marra gave a sigh and her entire body relaxed. “That’s good.” she managed.

  While she resumed wiping his forehead, Bael studied her face. Her beautiful, sad face. Her cheekbones were high and well-positioned. Her nose petite and pretty without being too small. Her eyes the same shocking green of his own. Of her entire family, or so he’d been told. Green or blue, it seemed. Like the river, Jorna had told him as a boy. Granny Jorna with her milky white eyes that had once been as black as his father’s. And as common.

  Not his mother’s; not his. And never royal.

  “Is Granny…” he began, feeling a sudden sob well up in his chest.

  Marra shook her head, “She’ll live. The healers are, of course, not what they were in the city, but they believe the worst of her injuries can be contained until her body responds. Of course, given her age it’s difficult to say. I’ve been praying with her. Your Lord Father has been occupied with…other matters of late, so I’ve been tending to her.”

  “How long was I asleep?” Bael asked softly, placing a hand over hers. He could see the pain through the clarity of her eyes, as though she were suffering just by being awake.

  “Days, dear. Many days. Perhaps a week? I’ve lost count, tending you and your granny. The womenfolk have had their hands full since your sister’s visit.”

  Visit. Marra always made everything sound so pleasant. But then, of course, she’d been raised that way. She was a queen in her own right, though that had been long ago. And she had given it up to be with her true love, his Lord Father.

  What a wretched mistake. Bael thought.

  That thought. Where had it come from? Had anyone heard it? Was his Lord Father still listening? Had he been listening from the beginning? Whether or not anyone was scrying his thoughts, did that make him any less right?

  Bael felt a growing irritation at his own cowardice. He forced himself to relax, but kept his eyes open this time to spare his mother her worry. If any of his Lord Father’s scryers had been listening to him, they would already have been in to arrest him, to stake him to the ground outside until his fate could be determined.

  Heretics were not permitted in the Commune, and the scryers enforced piety with deadly dedication.

  Bael himself had praised their efforts on the times he had been caught with impure thoughts about his own lot in life. He had praised them all the more when they’d whipped him time and time again in front of the others. Those scars never faded, but rather reflected his faith all the more. He had endured, the others be damned.

  The others. The others who had laughed. The others who called him ‘Toad’. Who’d kicked him in the mud when he was a boy, and now whenever he didn’t hop and fetch fast enough for their liking.

  But that time is limited. Before long, their knees will bend. And then they will tremble.

  Those thoughts…Bael’s irritation blossomed into anger. The Dark God be praised, but Bael wondered if Darielle’s true intent had been to drive him unquestionably mad. If so, she had apparently succeeded.And if the scryers hadn’t picked up on his unintentional blasphemy yet, it would only be a matter of time. Especially if these thoughts kept returning to him unbidden. Especially if he kept agreeing.

  Let them come. Bael thought defiantly.

  His encounter with Darielle had been more enlightening than she might have known. Yes, she’d twisted his spell back at him, but Bael had never held that much of the Archanium before. Nowhere near that much power. He found the possibilities such power could afford him deeply exciting.

  “I need to see Granny.” he said finally, assured that he’d collected sufficient control of his thoughts and feelings. He knew who he was; he knew what he believed. He believed what he believed.

  Didn’t he?

  His mother’s expression fell, “Darling, I’m not sure she’s even awake. She was so badly used by your sister. After you were knocked down, I hear things carried on for some time.”

  Bael pushed himself up on the bed. He felt as strong and capable as ever, if a little disoriented. “No.” he said, keeping his voice calm for the sake of his mother’s fragile nerves. “No, Mama, I need to see her now. I need to understand what happened. It’s important.” He turned to look her in the eye, “Mama, believe me, it’s very important.”

  Marra’s face went ashen. She dropped the cloth and stood up, taking a step back. “Are you sure you’re strong enough?” she managed.

  Bael gave a curt nod.

  She gave a laugh that Bael first misunderstood as a choking sound. “Gods, but you look like my sister.” was all she said before he left the tent.

  As he stalked across the grounds to his grandmother’s tent, Bael tried to put the pieces together. Why was his mother acting so strangely around him? What secrets was she keeping? Whatever it was, she’d kept it deeply buried for nearly two decades and never let it slip once.

  And yet now she was losing her composure, speaking blasphemy out loud, ce
rtainly having unclean thoughts. The scryers hadn’t picked up on her either.

  Bael expected them to notice the Toad. The Lord and Master’s wife, on the other hand, might be a different matter for them. Perhaps they were protecting her. The idea comforted him in a world devoid of such a luxury.

  Bael clung to his illusion.

  Dark God be praised, if only I could provide her protection. he thought to himself.

  He did not stop to wonder at the thought. He did not concern himself with the scryers or his father. If they heard, they heard. And he was happy to handle the consequences, whatever they might be.

  His rising anger shielded him from the natural fear he knew he ought to feel. But his mother and Jorna were the center of his world. If he couldn’t protect them, what was the point of living?

  The sight of Granny Jorna’s ruined tent drew him up short.

  It was a shambles, little more than a smoking hide piled with dying embers and ash.

  Darielle had clearly been unhappy when she left.

  He was crawling through the ash, wondering how he had intended to protect Granny Jorna, when he felt a hard grip on his shoulder.

  “And what are we doing here?”

  A scryer.

  “I’m looking for my grandmother.” Bael muttered.

  “What was that?” the scryer asked, tightening his grip.

  One of the Darielle’s visions flashed across his sight. He fought the impulse, but lost immediately. The floodgates holding his mounting rage burst.

  “I said,” Bael growled, embracing his faith and filling himself with a prayer to the Dark God, “that,” the grip loosened, “I’m looking,” he heard the scryer choking as he crumpled the man’s windpipe, “for my grandmother.”

  Bael stood and turned to face a suffocating man. The man was one of his father’s favorites. His face was turning a fascinating dusky blue.

  “You look cold.” Bael whispered. “I can fix that.”

  The scryer burst into flames. Bael released his control of the man’s breath just to hear him scream.

  Bael stood still and watched as the fire of his faith burned the man to white ash. And then he stomped through the remains, scattering the scryer to the wind. In his wake he left the ruined tent and a dozen faces frozen in confusion, anger. Fear.

  Word reached the medic tent before he did. Of course it had. He had just executed a high-ranking scryer without obvious cause or authority. Yet with unmistakable ability.

  That apparently allowed him special access that would have normally been denied him. He wondered what would have happened if they’d told him he couldn’t see Granny Jorna.

  The thoughts that passed through his mind were disturbingly similar to the visions Darielle had placed there just a handful of days past. He hadn’t anticipated putting truth to her visions quite so soon. He hadn’t anticipated the rage.

  But these people were mostly safe. As long as Jorna and Marra weren’t threatened or harmed, no one need suffer that bastard scryer’s fate. That one had gone too far, had had too little sympathy and too much suspicion. Bael felt no remorse over his passing, only insulted at the dead man’s presumption.

  Where had that come from? The question was now only a dim echo in the chaotic thunder of his thoughts, scattered in the gale of his mind before it was even fully recognized.

  The sight that greeted him in the medic tent was another matter.

  The woman was broken.

  Bones obviously shattered and jutting from her papery skin. Blood caked and cracked around her eyes and fingernails. Several of her toes were missing, leaving only burned stumps and fractured pieces of white and brown seared bone.

  And her eyes. Her eyes were the worst.

  Rather than the milky whiteness of time, there was simply nothing. No bloody sockets, no bandaging, literally nothing. Empty pools of darkness that drooled smoke down the sides of her face. The droplets of shadow dissipated before they reached the floor, bursting and twisting out of existence.

  “Good gods.” he whispered before he even realized what he’d said.

  But despite his obvious blasphemy, the healers in the room quietly filed out without meeting his gaze.

  “Bael, dearie? Is that you?” Jorna whimpered, the darkness in her empty sockets intensifying into a full rush of oily smoke.

  Bael rushed to her side, “Granny, it’s me! I’m here to be with you. What can I do?”

  “Well for the love of the Dark God, don’t try to heal anything. Those bastard charlatans have no claim to the title and it’s time for another ‘treatment’, just kill me now.”

  Bael was stunned to hear her spouting blasphemy with as much abandon as his mother. Would they all be executed for heresy? He countered his fear with anger. He was here to see her. She was alive. That was what mattered.

  A small piece of paper fell from Jorna’s humble coverings, flitting to the floor.

  Bael caught it, his eyes catching his sister’s handwriting, A gift. Whatever that meant.

  “You killed a scryer.” Jorna said, smirking.

  “You…how did you know?” he stammered, tucking the paper into his breeches and snapping back to the moment at hand.

  Jorna chuckled. Her laughter brought on a coughing fit that lasted several minutes. Some of her coughs brought up blood. Bael resisted the urge to heal her. He knew he was limited at best in that area.

  Limited like all of his father’s acolytes. Their path, the Path of Volos, took them too far to the edge of the Great Sphere to reach the healing magics they so desperately needed right now. His father’s acolytes were not trained to be healers.

  They were trained to be weapons.

  When her coughing finally settled, Jorna allowed herself a chuckle, “You’re asking how I know things that happen, that may happen? I never pegged you for a stupid boy from the frog pond. You’re smarter than that. Your sister told you as much before she muddied up your mind.”

  “But what about you? Why would she do this to you?” Bael demanded.

  Jorna gave a tired shrug, “Let me tell you what. Your sister is…different. She does as she does. If she’d wanted me dead, I’d be dead. I’m not, not yet, so I guess it’s not my time by her clock. You’re not either, so obviously she still wants something with the two of us. Darielle isn’t a good girl, but you can’t say she doesn’t have direction.”

  “She tried to kill both of us.” Bael snarled.

  Jorna sniggered, “She didn’t, did she? But she did share something with you. Something she shouldn’t have?”

  Bael groaned inwardly. “She showed me the prophecy you had about me. But she put it in my head, the way she saw it. It…it was horrific.” That last word was barely a whisper.

  Jorna cackled. “She showed you that?”

  Bael raised his head, “What did you expect?”

  Jorna was overtaken by another coughing fit. She shook and sputtered for a handful of minutes before she finally regained control of herself.

  She wiped blood from her mouth and fixed him with that terrifying, empty gaze, “I expected that she might give you your options, but it sounds like she only gave you her version of events.”

  Bael sank to his knees and leaned close to his grandmother, “I’m so confused.” Recent turmoil aside, he still wasn’t brave enough to cry.

  She patted his head with her good hand, “Of course you are, dearie. Of course you are. But here’s the sun through the smoke: what Darielle saw was only one path the Dark God has in store. If she wins, all those horrid things will come true. I can’t deny her accuracy. But there’s another way.”

  Bael looked down, preparing himself for visions that could possibly rival Darielle’s. Instead, he heard Jorna giggle.

  “What? What is it?” he asked, suddenly angry that she hadn’t shared her vision.

  Jorna’s smile widened, her nightmare eyes widening in comedic fashion, “You just have to find the boy.”

 
The next morning Aleksei woke feeling barely rested. He stumbled out of bed and dressed quickly. As he headed downstairs he paused before their small shrine to the Great Mother Mokosh, Goddess of the earth and fertility.

  “Let these phantoms be taken from me.” he whispered, touching the limewood statue with reverence. Aleksei wasn’t sure if it would do much good, but he was quickly becoming desperate, and the Great Mother had always seemed to look favorably upon him.

  From the clatter of the skillet on the stove, he knew his father was already up and moving about their small kitchen, assembling breakfast.

  “Morning, Son.” Henry called cheerfully when Aleksei descended into view.

  Aleksei nodded his greeting, then glanced out the window into the black morning. The sun wouldn’t be up for another few hours now, but they’d be out in the field well before, finishing the bundling that should have been done the night before.

  His father placed two bowls of steaming porridge on the heavy kitchen table. Aleksei restrained a sigh as he turned and sat on his worn stool, pulling his breakfast closer and taking a few cursory bites. The food was bland but filling. Aleksei had long grown used to it, though he couldn’t help but remember the now-mythic meals of his old home. His mouth watered recalling the piles of roasted venison and fresh fruit that had been nearly omnipresent fixtures of every meal.

  He had been a boy when they left the Ri-Vhan, yet the memories of his mother’s people and their village in the trees of Seil Wood still surfaced in his dreams.

  Aleksei recalled his dream from the night before and shivered. Instead he turned his thoughts back to the tasks ahead of him. Nothing good could come of dwelling on such dreams. They were better best forgotten.

  “How are you feeling?” Henry asked softly.

  “Better.” Aleksei lied.

  “Truly? Well, I’m glad to hear it.”

  Aleksei heard what his father was trying to say. Henry was concerned. He didn’t like seeing his son upset, but if Aleksei wanted to talk about it he would be there to listen.

  “Shouldn’t we head out to the field?” Aleksei asked after a pregnant pause. “The crows’ll be getting up soon.”