The Last Talisman

by Licia Troisi

  It took some time before he built up enough courage to look at himself in the mirror. Back in the tent, they’d been changing his bandages frequently, but Ido still hadn’t had a chance to see his new face.

  One evening he decided it was time.

  Cautiously, trying not to aggravate the wound, he loosened his bandage. It felt as if the eye were still there, as if a nail had been wedged into his head. He’d heard about this from plenty of soldiers who’d lost a leg. Even after the amputation, they could still feel it moving and aching. He’d never thought that the same thing could happen with an eye. In some ways, he realized, you didn’t know what you had until it was gone.

  Once the bandages were removed, he pulled out the mirror Soana had lent him. A deep red scar ran across nearly half of his face. Along the outline of his eyelid lay a trail of black dots. Beneath his eyebrow, a clot of blood.

  How was he supposed to accept this new face? How was he supposed to feel? The darkest of thoughts, thoughts he’d pushed to the margins of his consciousness, suddenly flooded his mind.

  Nothing will be the same. You’ll never be as good with a sword as you used to be. Your field of vision will be cut in half, and an enemy could strike at any time from your blind spot. You’ll never be the warrior you once were.

  Walking about town one day, Ido noticed a familiar face, a boy hobbling on crutches. Yes, he remembered him well. It was Caver, the student he’d called on to duel during the final round of selections. Ido’s suspicions had been right—the boy had proven himself a worthy soldier on the first day of battle.

  Ido called out to him as he walked over.

  “Ido!” Caver exclaimed with a smile.

  They found a quiet place to talk and for a few minutes they sat there in silence, as if they’d forgotten what to say.

  “How were you wounded?” Ido began.

  “It happened on the second day, sir, while you were tied up with Deinforo. The troops panicked in your absence and there was a moment of chaos—that’s when the Fammin struck.” He gave a wary smile.

  Ido thought back to that morning. He’d set his sights on Deinforo and forgotten the rest, as if he were the only one on the battlefield. It was something he’d have done with no qualms in the past, but now the thought of it disgusted him. He felt ashamed. “I let anger get the best of me,” he confessed, his head lowered.

  “You were extraordinary!” the boy countered. “I’m only sorry I didn’t get to see when you sliced his hand off. Everyone says it was incredible. You knocked out the enemy’s strongest warrior. After his injury, we didn’t see any more of him.”

  Caver wanted to know everything about the duel and Ido appeased him, taking pleasure in the boy’s admiring gaze. Even still, he felt tortured. His men had been slaughtered out there and he hadn’t even been there to help. He’d abandoned them to carry out his own personal grudge. An unjustifiable action.

  “So what will you do now?” Ido asked in the end.

  Caver shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ll go back to the front. What I saw out there was worse than anything I could have imagined. I don’t know if I have it in me. I don’t even know if there’s a cause out there that could justify such horror. Besides, they told me my leg will never be the same. I guess what I’ll do is go home, even though I know it won’t be easy going back to that life after seeing so many of my friends die.”

  Ido understood him well—in his forty years of combat, he’d parted with almost everyone and everything dear to him. All that he had left now was Nihal.

  As the pale evening sun retreated below the horizon, the two said their good-byes. Ido returned to his tent, feeling like a tired war veteran. After his battle with Deinforo, something had changed. An old story come to end, perhaps. Or, perhaps, a new beginning.

  25

  A Most Worthy Struggle

  “Damn!”

  Nihal had come back to her senses. Her head was throbbing, her hands bound with greasy rope. She and Sennar were locked in a rank hole, stretched out on their backs and tied to the rock below them. Suddenly, the half-elf sensed something out of place, as if a puzzle piece were missing. She checked her hip. Her sword. They’d taken her sword.

  From the day Livon had given it to her, never once had her sword been taken against her will. Now some stranger’s filthy handprints were all over it. For all she knew, some enemy might even be wearing it at his side. The thought was unbearable. That sword wasn’t merely her weapon; it was all she had left of Livon. It was her only tie to her father.

  “Damn!”

  “At least you were asleep when they attacked,” said Sennar. “I spent half an hour convincing myself that their footsteps were all in my imagination. If I’d have kept better watch, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  Sennar’s mea culpa wasn’t much comfort to Nihal. But at least they hadn’t taken the talisman. She could still feel the cold metal pressed against her chest, just beneath her bodice. “Who locked us up?” she asked.

  “I have no idea. We’re still down in the aqueduct. I can’t think of any reason the Tyrant’s men would be down here.”

  In the end, it made no difference. Regardless of who had taken them prisoner, Nihal and Sennar were stuck. The mission was over. Now and then, Nihal struggled to loosen the knots around her hands and feet, but it was hopeless. They’d been tied with expertise, and she was worn beyond exhaustion. Her vision began to flutter from hunger. The stifling heat crept down into her throat, stealing her breath.

  After a few hours, the cell door opened and a blinding light poured in. They couldn’t see what was going on, but they could hear voices.

  “This is where we put them.”

  “I see that.”

  A woman’s voice, a voice that struck Sennar as familiar.

  “The one’s a sorcerer, but he’s knocked up pretty bad, and the girl’s some sort of warrior, I think.”

  “Pull them out. I’m not going down into that grimy hole.”

  Two powerful arms gripped Sennar and tossed him onto the surface above. Nihal followed.

  “Let’s see what we have here,” said the woman’s voice, but her lips froze mid-speech. “It can’t be …”

  Sennar turned up his eyes and could finally make out the person’s face standing before him. “It’s you. …”

  Aires flung her arms around his neck. “Sennar!”

  Nihal was completely baffled, and more than a little irritated by the sight of this woman clutching Sennar so passionately.

  They held each other for a long while, and when they finally let go, both were tearing with laughter. The woman couldn’t stop staring at Sennar, repeating the same words over and over: “There’s just no way. … Sennar, it’s really you!”

  At last, Nihal’s eyes adapted to the light and she got a better look at the woman. She was extraordinarily beautiful, with gleaming, jet-black hair and penetrating black eyes. Her figure was strikingly feminine despite the men’s clothing she wore. She was a woman, a true woman. Where had she met Sennar? And why did they seem to be on such close terms? The woman was practically eating him with her eyes, and he was staring right back with equal pleasure. Nihal’s irritation grew.

  After this exuberant display of affection, Aires ordered her guards to free the prisoners. Sennar, she noticed, was struggling to stay on his feet, and she asked him what the matter was, but without giving him any time to respond, she lifted his tunic and saw the splotch of blood on his pants, just above the knee.

  “My men aren’t exactly gentle,” she said. “I’ll make sure you’re tended to.” She studied him closely and took his face between her hands. “Look at your cheeks. It looks like you haven’t eaten for days.”

  “Well, truth be told …” Sennar nodded.

  “It’s decided then. First things first. Let’s eat!” she said, leading the way.

 
; Nihal scanned the area as they walked. They were still in the aqueduct, in one of the larger cisterns. Thirty or so huts were housed in the several spacious niches and parapets that had been carved into the walls. An eclectic bunch of inhabitants bustled about: dwarves, for the most part, but several men as well, and all glancing at them inquisitively. Nihal couldn’t help but wonder where in the world they’d ended up.

  Sennar and the woman were deep in conversation for the entire walk. Aires led them into the largest hut, a torch-lit room with shadows flickering against the walls and a stack of barrels in the corner. She invited them to take a seat at the table and muttered a few orders to two of the dwarves. Shortly after, the dwarves returned with two bowls of steaming rice, and Nihal and Sennar dug so voraciously into their food that their host was left speechless.

  “How long, exactly, has it been since you last ate?”

  Sennar lifted his head from his plate just long enough to get the words out. “Roughly … I’d say six days. And in the meantime, we’ve done nothing but stomp around this cursed aqueduct.”

  “You were always resilient, but this is another level altogether. …” Aires remarked.

  When their stomachs had been filled, Aires pulled out a long pipe and lit the end. Nihal was taken aback. She’d never seen a woman smoke before.

  “Now you’re all mine,” Aires said, her seductive voice creeping under Nihal’s skin. “The last person I ever thought I’d see down here, to be honest.”

  “I thought you were still at sea.”

  “Liar,” she said slyly. “I’ll bet you haven’t thought of me a single time since we said good-bye.” She shot a furtive glance at Nihal, who was beet red in the face. Aires smiled. “You must be Nihal.”

  Her words hit Nihal like a blow to the gut. How was it that this woman knew her name, while she was left completely in the dark?

  Aires gazed at her in amusement. “Sennar told me about you,” she said, puffing on her pipe. “And yet,” she added, narrowing her eyes, “I guarantee he’s never once mentioned my name to you.”

  Sennar was blushing now, Nihal noticed. “What makes you say that?” the sorcerer asked.

  “I know who I’m dealing with, let’s put it that way,” Aires retorted. “In any case, Nihal, I’m Aires. I manned the helm on the ship that carried Sennar to the whirlpool.” She turned back toward Sennar. “But enough with the introductions. I want to hear how you survived. When I saw you drift off in your little boat, I was sure that was the end of you.”

  In a wealth of detail, Sennar launched into his tale. Nihal knew the story too well not to realize that he was playing it up a bit, doing all he could to garner alluring looks of approval from Aires.

  “It was Benares who put the hole in your boat,” Aires said, once he’d finished.

  Sennar’s eyes widened. “There’s no way.”

  “There is indeed, because that’s what happened,” she exclaimed, knocking the tobacco from her pipe. “He confessed it to me when we reached the Vaneries. As you can imagine, that was the end of his stay aboard my ship. I booted him off.”

  Sennar couldn’t believe how casually Aires was telling him all this. He still remembered the passion with which she and Benares had kissed when the pirates had first pulled Benares from another ship, rescuing him just before he was sold off to the military. Not to mention all the time they’d spent locked up in her cabin at the beginning of the voyage.

  “As far as I know,” Aires went on, “he’s still in the Vaneries where we left him. That imbecile,” she added, though her voice was beginning to crack. “He was never that way before they’d captured him. He’d never have betrayed a shipmate.”

  “But how is it you’re not at sea anymore?” Sennar asked.

  “It’s all your fault,” she replied, glancing at him. “You ruined my life.” At that she stood and grabbed a bottle of purple liquid from the shelf. “Remember this stuff?” she asked Sennar.

  The sorcerer smiled. “Of course.”

  Aires grabbed three glasses and filled them. Then she downed hers in a gulp, and Sennar began sipping his slowly.

  Nihal eyed her own glass suspiciously before having a taste. As the liquid went down, a flame shot up her throat. Strong, to say the least. … Nothing like the beer she was used to.

  Aires sat down, still holding her glass. “After we dropped you off, we followed your advice. Taking the long way, we looped around the monster and headed back to the Vaneries to restock. I thought of you almost the entire way,” she said, eyeing him maliciously. “I was certain you were dead. I thought of everything we’d said to each other, in the Vaneries, on board the ship.”

  Nihal threw back a healthy draft of the purple liquid.

  “I started thinking that maybe it wasn’t so wrong after all, what you’d said about dedicating your life to something more than just thrill seeking,” Aires went on. “Anyway, after that we went to speak with Moni, the elder. She told us of other islands where we could stop along the way, out of reach of the winds of the storm. Which is how we ended up exploring the waters there. Those were grand times, in their own way: unknown lands, untouched shores, distant peoples …

  “For four months, we did nothing but explore. We saw everything there was to see under the sun, and when we tired of wandering, we visited the lands beyond the Saar. Life went back to normal, but it wasn’t enough anymore. After all of the places I’d been, the adventures I’d had, it felt as if I’d run out of things to do. Everything seemed trivial and boring. Another ship to rob, another enemy to defeat, always brandishing a sword. There were men, too, and plenty, but even they ended up boring me. I thought of you again, of your death, I wanted to know what was happening on shore, what could have been so horrible that it drove someone like you to sacrifice yourself for the people of the Overworld.

  “It felt like being in a cage, out on the open sea, so I decided to come ashore. At first, I did it out of curiosity—I wanted to see the place you came from, to meet the people you’d sacrificed your life for. My father wasn’t happy about it, but he let me go. I went to the Free Lands first. The Land of the Sun appalled me, all those people doing nothing but stuffing their faces, the women so decked in jewelry you’d think they were goddesses themselves. … Then I traveled to the Land of Water, but even there I was disappointed: men and nymphs scowling at one another, self-important generals … I just couldn’t figure out who or what it was you’d given your life for.

  “Then I made the decision to enter enemy territory. Late at night, I crossed the border into the Land of the Wind. And that’s when I began to understand. Blood and death don’t scare me. You know that. But this was something different, a cruelty like nothing I’d ever witnessed at sea. Men treated like slaves, those repulsive Fammin, soldiers killing for pleasure, mass executions … The ultimate display of cruelty for cruelty’s sake. A triumph of sadism. And that wretched tower, the Rock, looming over everything. No matter where you look, you can’t escape it.

  “For months, I wandered. I traveled to the Land of Rocks, and eventually made it to this volcanic land with its unbreathable air. It was here that I first met people who’d been suppressed by the Tyrant. Servile men, their dignity crushed, no rebellion left in their bones. They did whatever they were ordered to do, even if it meant murdering a friend. At first, I looked down on them; I thought they deserved to be slaves. But then I thought of what you’d said to me in the Vaneries, the day before we spoke to Moni: ‘Why do the weak have to fall, too?’ Aires fixed Sennar in a steady gaze and the sorcerer lowered his eyes, intimidated. She took up her story again. “I forced myself to look inside these servants of the Tyrant, to really try and understand them, and what I found there led me to where I am now. I found the seed of freedom. They’d been forced to live as slaves, their bodies scarred, their spirits downtrodden, and yet, deep in their hearts, they were still free. I could feel it. I’ve always believed t
hat in life, freedom is all. To destroy the seed of liberty buried in the heart of each man is a crime. And so I decided to remain here. I met others who thought the same way I did, and together we formed a resistance against the Tyrant—to protect that seed, to nourish it.

  “It didn’t take much. A few rebel groups had already formed. Dwarves, for the most part, but men, too. All that was missing was structure, a unifying force to organize the effort. When they told me of the aqueduct, I knew it was our best hope. So we hunkered down and got to work. Some of the dwarves had labored down here before and knew every canal, every cistern. We dug new tunnels, built these huts, rallied our defenses. Members spread out, spawning new groups. And so the resistance began. The aqueduct has become our home, and we resurface only for the occasional raid. We strike without warning and retreat underground. Sometimes the people help us, sometimes they betray us. But we persevere.”

  Aires broke off her tale and tossed back another glass of Shark. “It’s strange, no? Who’d have ever thought I’d end up down here? Not even a year ago, I was sitting with you on board my ship, working up a passionate defense for the life of a thrill seeker. Now here I am underground, blathering on about freedom, leading a few poor rebels in a struggle against all the odds. …”

  Nihal had absorbed the entire story in silence. Now she stared at Aires in admiration. Even Aires—who’d been a pirate, who’d spent most of her life chasing thrills—even she had a guiding cause, an end to pursue, a reason to go on. Sitting across from her, Nihal felt puny and useless with her bloodied sword, her thousands of doubts, unable to walk her own path in life.

  “You haven’t really changed at all, in the end,” said Sennar. “Even when you spoke to me of your life at sea, I could see your heart was purer than your words. I could see it in your love for the ship, in the faith you had in your crew.”

  Aires cast him a searching look. “You, on the other hand … I can see you’ve changed. You seem sadder, worn down; I can see it in your eyes. You’re no longer the boy I once knew. Something’s happened.”