Children of Fire

by Drew Karpyshyn

  “I’m not his girlfriend!” she screamed as she came hurtling around the corner.

  Eiger lay flat on his back in the dust of the empty street. Petir was sitting astride the other boy’s ample belly, pinning him down. Dozens of inch-long maggots snatched from one of the bait shops by the dock crawled blindly over one another in a small pile on the ground beside them. Petir held one of the wriggling worms pinched between his thumb and forefinger, dangling it over Eiger’s plump, tear-streaked face.

  Bander and Corbin were standing safely off to the side, watching as their ringleader tortured his latest victim. At least, they were until they caught sight of Scythe barreling onto the scene. With a startled cry both boys turned and fled before her charge; they’d learned long ago not to tangle with the slight but savage waif being raised by the local healer.

  Petir tried to rise to his feet, too—perhaps to join his companions in flight, perhaps to do battle with Scythe once again. However, his intentions were never given a chance to crystallize as Scythe launched herself feetfirst into his chest. The impact knocked him sprawling off Eiger and onto the hard-packed earth of the street, where he landed facedown.

  Before he could get up Scythe jumped on her prone opponent again, her knees connecting between his shoulders. The painful grunt of air escaping Petir’s lungs was drowned out as Scythe punctuated her landing with another cry of, “I’m not his girlfriend!”

  She threw herself down across Petir’s back and wrapped a wiry arm under the older boy’s chin in a fierce choke hold. With her other hand she reached around and hooked her index finger into one of his nostrils, bending his head back and up.

  Eiger still lay on his back, gasping for breath and sobbing in fear, though his cries were now drowned out by Petir’s shrieks of pain. He bucked and thrashed beneath her, but Scythe wasn’t about to let him break free so easily.

  In past fights the pair had exchanged fat lips, black eyes, and bloody noses. She’d bitten him hard enough to break the skin on more than one occasion. One time she’d actually cracked his knuckle when she had him in a finger lock. And another time she’d cut open a four-inch gash on his forehead with a rock thrown from a dozen feet away. But this time she was really going to teach Petir a lesson.

  Without releasing her choke hold or her grip on his nostril, she cast her head about from side to side. The maggots were still squirming in the dust a few feet away. All the better. Petir would have to eat them from the dirt.

  But before Scythe could maneuver her victim into position to begin his forced feast she felt a pair of large, rough hands wrap themselves around her waist and yank her off. She screamed and tried to kick whoever was holding her but the man was too strong and too careful to let her land a solid blow, and she couldn’t break free.

  Eiger and Petir were both still on the ground, staring up in terror at whoever had grabbed her.

  “Get out of here ye little bastards!” the stranger spat in a rasping voice.

  His breath smelled like the stuff Methodis used to burn infection from a raw wound. And there was another smell on him: not the fishy stench of a dockworker, but the sour stink of a man who lived in the cramped streets of the city core.

  The two boys scampered away, fleeing down the alley. Scythe struggled to join them but was powerless against the man holding her.

  “Yer quite the little hellion,” the man said, setting her down. “Go on. Get out of here if yer scared.”

  Released from his hold, Scythe took several quick steps away from the man then turned to face her attacker. The man’s clothes were dirty and stained, but they weren’t the rags of the beggars who wandered over near the churches of the New Gods. He was tall—much taller than Methodis. Bigger, too. He had long, stringy hair and a dark, scraggly beard. An ugly scar ran down the left side of his face, ending in an empty socket where an eye had once been.

  “I’m not scared of you!” Scythe declared, though it wasn’t entirely true.

  The man laughed. It wasn’t a pretty sound. “You dropped this, girlie.” He held up a crumpled piece of paper.

  “That’s mine!” Scythe snapped, suddenly remembering why she had been out in the street this morning in the first place.

  The man smiled at her as his eyes glanced over Methodis’s shopping list. “You work for the doctor, eh.” It wasn’t a question. “My name’s Luger, girlie. What’s yer name?”

  Scythe was suddenly very sure this man already knew her name.

  “Give me back my list,” she demanded, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

  He extended the paper to her only to snatch it back as she reached for it. “Yer the one they call Scythe, ain’t that right? You know what a scythe is, girlie?”

  “It’s an Old Tongue word,” she replied instinctively. Questions about her name were familiar enough by now that she could answer while trying to figure out a way to get her list back from this smelly man. “It means ‘spirit.’”

  “Methodis tell you that, did he?” the man asked with a sneer. “Out in the fields a scythe is something they use to harvest the crops. Slice them crops real good with a scythe, you know. Just like you sliced your mama’s belly open when you were born.”

  Scythe didn’t say anything, only shook her head in confusion. She didn’t know anything about her mother. Methodis never talked about her. But she couldn’t believe this foul, ugly man had actually known her.

  “What’s the matter, girlie?” Luger whispered. “Methodis never told you that? He never told you that when you were born you ripped your mama right apart? Tore her insides wide open, you did. Killed her.”

  “You’re a liar!” Scythe screamed, tears welling up in her eyes. “Give me back my list!”

  Luger laughed again. “You want it, girlie? Come get it.” He held it out again, taunting her.

  She leapt forward as if to grab it, knowing the whole while that he would just snatch it away again. She didn’t care; the paper wasn’t her real target. Methodis didn’t know much about fighting. He always said it was better to learn ways to stay out of fights than to learn ways to win them. But he knew lots about the body. About where it was weak. And he’d taught her what to do in an emergency if a man ever attacked her.

  As Luger yanked the paper up above her reach, Scythe simply followed through with her lunge, crouching down to drive a tiny, balled-up fist into the spot between Luger’s long legs just like Methodis had taught her.

  The one-eyed man staggered back and doubled over clutching at his groin with a long, loud groan. The list slipped from his fingers and Scythe snatched it from the air before it hit the ground, then fled down the alley. A second later the man’s voice chased after her, spewing profanities. But his words couldn’t hurt her and they quickly faded away into the background noise of the city as Scythe emerged from the alley onto one of the busy streets of Callastan’s market square.

  She glanced back to see if Luger was following her. Once assured the coast was clear, she took stock of her surroundings. To her surprise, she was only half a block away from the first of the shops she’d need to visit to acquire all the items on Methodis’s list.

  “What took you so long, Scythe?” Methodis asked as he took the small bag of medicinal components from his adopted daughter’s hand.

  Even the learned doctor had fallen into the habit of calling her by the more familiar name and not the one with which he himself had christened her.

  “Marigus was out of goldenbreath. I went to Wilmer’s shop, but he was all out, too. I had to get you sunstar petals instead.”

  She spoke with a smooth confidence that belied her age. His young charge was only eight, yet she already knew her letters well enough to read an ingredient list.

  And she’s smart enough to know which substitutes to get when the primary agents are unavailable, he silently noted with a twinge of fatherly pride.

  Her explanation seemed completely reasonable, and it was delivered without a hint of guilt or hesitation. But Methodis was a man of medicine, a
man used to observing minute physical details to aid him in his diagnoses. The fresh dust and stains on Scythe’s clothes and the faintly discolored contusions just above the wrists had not escaped his notice. And he knew Scythe’s character as well as any doting father might know his own flesh-and-blood daughter.

  “Were you fighting again, Scythe?” he asked, without any real anger. “Did Petir give you those marks on your arms?”

  The young girl hesitated, her brow momentarily furrowing in concentration. Methodis realized she was assessing the situation, calculating her odds of escaping punishment even as she tried to devise a convincing cover story to explain the telltale bruises. As always, he found her stubborn refusal to admit defeat amusing.

  Scythe’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly and she sighed in resignation. “I was fighting with Petir,” she said contritely. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  “I notice you’re sorry for lying, but not for fighting,” the doctor remarked even as he reached out to ruffle her short, silky black hair. She hopped back quickly and gave him a petulant frown as she smoothed down her locks.

  “Don’t muss my hair! It feels all icky when you do that. And Petir asked for it. He was picking on Eiger.”

  “I should have guessed,” Methodis replied. “Even so, you’ll have to copy out a page from one of my medical texts tonight.” He held up a stern finger to quell Scythe’s forthcoming protest. “As a punishment for lying,” he added, “not for helping Eiger.”

  Scythe rolled her eyes in exasperation but didn’t offer further opposition. In all truth the punishment wasn’t that severe. No more than an hour of her time this evening would be occupied with the task, and on some occasions she actually seemed to enjoy transcribing his texts. Methodis made a mental note to give her a passage detailing the Creeping Rot, an obscure and particularly gruesome affliction. Scythe seemed to enjoy such graphically macabre subject matter the most.

  He turned his back on her and began to stock the recently purchased supplies, placing them carefully onto their respective shelves. Proper organization was essential to any respectable medical practice. He expected Scythe would disappear into the street as she typically did, searching out Eiger or some of the other local urchins to try to goad them into stirring up minor mischief until it was time for her to come in for dinner. When she spoke, her presence startled him enough that he almost dropped his powdered blackroot into a mustard salve he had prepared that morning.

  “Methodis, how did my mother die?”

  He paused before turning back to face her. He had known this question would come, but even after eight years he didn’t know how he should answer it.

  “She was injured when you were born, Scythe. Someone had hurt her very badly.”

  He could tell by the look on her face the answer wasn’t satisfying, but he didn’t know what else he could say to fill the heavy silence that had fallen over the room.

  “Was it ’cause of me?” she blurted out suddenly. “Did my mama die because I was born?”

  “No, Scythe,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t kill your mother. It was the man who hurt her. Who told you this nonsense?”

  “A man in the street said my mama died because I split her open.”

  “A man? What man? Where?” A fierce protectiveness flared up inside Methodis, making his words come out sharper than he had intended.

  “I … I can’t remember his name. He was in one of the alleys. He smelled funny. He only had one eye. And a scar. Like this.” She traced her finger along her face.

  “Luger,” Methodis muttered, all the pieces suddenly becoming clear. He should have known a boy Petir’s age wasn’t strong enough to leave those kind of bruises on Scythe’s arms. “The man with one eye is named Luger.”

  Scythe nodded. “Is it true, Methodis? What he said? Did I … did I kill my …” Her voice caught in her throat with a hitch.

  The doctor set the ingredients on the floor and knelt down facing Scythe, arms held out. She stepped forward and he clasped them in a tight hug around her. He felt her chest heaving as she fought back sobs.

  “It’s not true, my little spirit. Never, never let anyone tell you that it was your fault.”

  He held her in his arms as the tears came. They didn’t last long; with Scythe they never did. She sniffled and wiped her running nose on the shoulder of his tunic.

  Methodis loosened his hug and placed his hands firmly but gently on the little girl’s shoulders so he could look directly into her eyes. “Listen to me, Scythe. Luger is a very bad man. He tells nasty lies because he just wants to hurt people. If you see him again, you run away as fast as you can. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she mumbled in reply, her voice still thick.

  He could tell from the expression on her face he didn’t need to emphasize the warning again. He stood up and ruffled her hair a second time, eliciting a small laugh as she playfully slapped his hand away.

  “Can I stay inside with you today, Methodis? I’ll go in the back whenever a patient comes. I’ll be real quiet and I won’t make any trouble.”

  “Of course,” the doctor said with a warm smile. “You can stay with me as long as you want.”

  “Are you sure about this, Methodis?” Captain Trascar asked once he had heard the doctor’s offer. “Have you really thought this through?”

  Methodis had thought it through. He’d thought it through dozens upon dozens of times. In the three days since Scythe had mentioned her meeting with Luger he’d thought of little else.

  Luger had fallen on hard times. Last winter he had caught one of his customers cheating at dice in the gambling rooms at the back of his inn. Caught him red-handed. Everybody saw it—the man was marked for a cheat in a part of town where cheaters turned up dead the next morning. But Luger was never a patient man and he had stabbed the customer in the throat, right in front of everybody. At the time nobody cared.

  And that would have been the end of it. Except that the man turned out to be a member of Callastan’s city patrol. Methodis had heard all this from a reliable source after the fact, and the story was even more plausible given what happened next.

  Nobody ever came forward to charge Luger with the murder. The constables in charge of the city patrols wouldn’t allow that. How would it look if one of their own was known to have been lurking in the docks while off duty, gambling at one of the worst taverns in the district … and cheating, to boot? No, they weren’t about to let that story be entered into the public records with a trial.

  Instead they brought a very different kind of justice crashing down on Luger’s world. They raided his establishment. They seized the illegal alcohol brewing in his cellar, and confiscated from his storerooms the banned roots and leaves people would smoke or chew to alter their conscious states. They arrested the girls in his back rooms and, more shockingly, arrested their customers, too.

  A week later they raided the place again. And again. And again. Luger tried to pay them off; bribing the patrols was a necessary cost of the business he had chosen. But no amount of coin could keep the raids from happening.

  They never arrested Luger himself. They didn’t have to. He went out of business within two months, after running up huge debts with other whorehouse and tavern owners in the district. Debts he couldn’t pay back. The patrols didn’t have to execute Luger for murdering their comrade; the men Luger owed money to would do it for them in due time.

  Word on the street was that the time was drawing very, very near. That was what scared Methodis the most. Luger knew he was finished. He was desperate and drunk and looking to settle old scores before he turned up gutted, swollen, and floating in the harbor.

  “I’ve thought this through,” Methodis said in answer to the captain’s question still hanging in the air. “Your ship is setting sail tomorrow morning. Scythe and I want to be on board. Most captains would jump at the chance to have a healer join their crew.”

  Trascar shook his head. “I’m not going to lie; the crew woul
d string me up if they knew I was trying to talk you out of signing on. We’ve been without a healer ever since Obler contracted the spotted plague and died last summer.

  “But I’m also your friend, Methodis. And I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret. If this is about Luger why don’t you just leave town for a while? A few weeks and he won’t be a problem anymore, or so I hear.”

  Methodis had already considered that option. He had considered many options. He was an observant and analytical man, after all.

  “Luger is a vengeful whelp spawned from a diseased bitch,” he said with uncharacteristic hatred. “He’s just mean and petty enough to use his last few coins to pay someone to settle his scores for him after he’s gone. I don’t want to take that chance.”

  Still, the captain resisted. “This is no kind of life for a girl! Weeks, even months at sea broken up by a day or two docked in some stinking port teeming with unwashed Islanders.”

  “Scythe is an Islander herself,” Methodis noted. “And the ports aren’t as bad as you claim. I traveled often in my younger days, Trascar. Or have you forgotten our voyages together?”

  “I haven’t forgotten. But we were both young men then, looking for adventure. You gave the life up for a reason: You wanted to study and learn your craft.

  “Besides, things are different now, Methodis. Every season spawns a dozen storms the like of which you’ve never seen! The seas seem to grow rougher and wilder with each passage, as if some great power was stirring the waters up against us. Shipwrecks aren’t unheard of these days.

  “And what about my crew?” Trascar continued, furthering his point. “Long trips at sea can do things to a man. Urges can make him try to … take liberties … with a woman. Things he wouldn’t do on land.”

  “You’re too good a sailor for me to worry about storms and shipwrecks,” Methodis countered. “And you’re too honest a man to hire on a crew that would do those kinds of things to Scythe.”

  “What about pirates?” Trascar added, though from his voice it was obvious he was reaching for arguments now. “If they capture a young girl you know what they’ll turn her into.”