by Heath Pfaff
Tyvel, a strange shadow of the man who had helped craft the process by which the Knights of Ethan were given their incredible and terrible power, also did his part to help out around our home in his own way. He couldn't interact with physical entities in any way, but he could keep an eye on Kay and let others know if she was getting herself into trouble, and my daughter was certainly one to get herself into trouble. Since developing the ability to walk, she had made it her personal goal to explore every nook of our home and its surroundings, resulting in many terrifying moments of panic for the entire household. Tyvel seemed to honestly enjoy the process of her growth, taking great delight in each new ability she added to her repertoire of skills. He had been ecstatic the first time she spoke, and had spent every moment since trying to coax further words from the uncooperative girl.
Wisp said that Kay was developing fast for a child of her age. She had gotten to the point where she could string together words into coherent sentences, and she seemed to grasp more than she let on about the conversations taking place around her, though it was impossible to be certain exactly how much she really understood since she'd always been a quiet child. Wisp sat the feathery haired little girl down, and immediately Kay went running from the room, Tyvel falling in behind her, the ever dutiful observer.
"Be careful, dear, you'll run into something if you dash about like that all the time!" I heard his voice call as he chased in the child's wake.
Wisp smiled at the departing little girl and ghost before turning her attention on me. "How long will you be gone?"
"I would think no longer than two weeks." I wasn't quite sure how long Malice and I would have to be out, but I knew that it would be some time. We were in need of supplies, and game was getting more difficult to track down in the local region. The more we hunted, the further the animal life seemed to migrate away. What was worse was that while some possible game remained in the area, it was getting harder to determine what was truly safe to eat.
There was a breed of deer that lived in the woods surrounding us, but the meat of that particular animal was highly toxic. Luckily, the beast also smelled putrid when prepared, so we had thought to test the meat before consuming it, which thankfully saved us all from unintentional poisoning. The predatory beasts in the area were fierce, and could easily hunt a creature to extinction. It was obvious that, like the strange poisonous deer, other local wild life had also adapted in their own ways to keep that from happening. While this was great for the creatures in the area, it meant that we had to travel further and further afield to find meat for the table, and that was a prospect I did not look forward to. It was that, or somehow learn to eat poison.
"So long?" Wisp asked, her smile fading. I had come to think of the young fallen Knight as a sister over the years we had shared the cabin in the woods. I knew her well enough to know that she didn't like being left alone, but there was little choice in the matter. Wisp was the best with Kay, and Malice was the best at tracking and hunting. Since the woods were dangerous I couldn't let Malice go alone, so that meant that Wisp would have to stay behind to watch our home and tend the child. The area around our home was mostly safe. We had made sure of that over the course of our first year living there, so it wasn't that she had to fear the beasts in the area. In fact, she was well suited to handling any such problems on her own. What really bothered Wisp, I knew, was fear for Malice and I until we came back, and not knowing where we were, or what we were doing, was difficult for her. If something happened to us while we were out, she would be entirely alone with a child depending on her, and that was a bleak prospect when you're stranded in the deep wilderness. She might have Tyvel, but he would be little help in caring for a young child when he could do nothing to interact with the world around him.
I put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze, the only sign of physical affection I ever offered Wisp. It wasn't that she was hideous, or that she would not have reciprocated further physical approaches, but I simply saw Wisp as an older sister and nothing more. Though she was technically older than me by nearly ten years, she didn't appear the elder of the two of us. Her youthful visage was a result of our peculiar nature.
"We'll come back as soon as we can. Perhaps the hunting will go well." I didn't have much faith in those words, and I knew that we desperately needed to start stocking up stores for the coming winter. It would be a long hunt, but I didn't want her to worry any more than she already did.
Wisp simply nodded, her smile not returning. She knew the truth as well as I did. "You should at least say goodbye to your daughter before you leave. She will miss you."
I shrugged. "We won't be gone long, and she'll barely know I'm gone so long as she has you and Tyvel to drive mad."
Wisp's features soured. "You really should show more affection towards your daughter, Noble." She used my name as given to me by the Broken Swords. It was not a title I had given out often, but Wisp seemed to prefer it. "She loves her father, and you need to let her know that you love her too."
What Wisp said rang all too true, but since Kye's passing I had found myself disinterested in growing close to anyone, even my own daughter. I was not mean to her, nor did I ever ignore her, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I loved her, or to hold her close to me as both Wisp and Malice did. I did love her, but I had never vocalized the sentiment. I didn't know why that was, and it bothered me. Anytime I thought of saying those words, I felt a terrible rush of fear, as if by speaking the words aloud I would be somehow condemning her.
"She knows how I feel." I said gruffly, perhaps more so than I meant to. I turned away, and I heard Wisp sigh in exasperation.
"Fine, I will tell her you said goodbye. Travel safe, and make sure you both return in one piece." Wisp said, giving in to my stubbornness.
I walked from our cozy cabin, with its three small bedrooms and central chamber, and out into the cool air of the world. Finally, I turned to face our hand-built abode. It wasn't beautiful, and probably would have made most professional builders laugh, but it kept us warm, and was the closest thing I'd had to a true home in a long time. I took a deep breath and let it out as I turned to face the path away from the cabin. My warm breath fogged in the fall air. Within my cloak of the finest Lucidil fabric, the cold did not touch me in the least. I knew that while I wore that cloak the parts of me covered by it would be nearly invisible if I stood still, and that I would never feel extreme heat or chill. I knew also that it would provide some minor protection from the dangers posed by knives and projectiles, but as was evidenced by the rough pattern of stitches that marred the otherwise incredible material, the cloth would not turn aside all blows. The particular strike that had left that rend in the fabric had nearly cost me my life. I shivered with the remembered chill of the metal that had pierced cleanly through my body.
Beyond the shelter of our cabin, Malice waited for me. She stood tall and proud, as tall as me, if not only slightly shorter, and just as imposing as ever. Her intense eyes were entirely green, but for the circle of white that traced each pupil with lines of constantly shifting white lightening streaking from the center. My eyes were the same, though colored a deep purple, and Wisp's too were similar, though hers were solid black. Our eyes were the source of our strength, the center of all our amazing abilities, but they were a curse for all that they were a blessing. The cost of the eyes we wore was terrible, a lineage of evil started long ago by the kings of men. I thought of Kyeia, and bit my lip to stifle the pain that stabbed at my heart as a memory of a quiet gravestone deep in the woods, nearly an hour's hard walk from our cabin, returned to me. Someday I would have to tell Kay that story, and show her where her mother lay. She deserved to know. . . someday.
"It's about time you were ready. It's nearly midday. We should have departed hours ago." Malice's voice had a heavier edge to it than it normally carried, and I realized that she was angry with me for something. I doubted she would tell me what that something was.
"Fair enough, b
ut there were things that needed to be seen to here before we left." I told her. "I piled wood for the fire, and made sure there was enough fresh water sealed and ready for Wisp so she needn't make the run to the river constantly, having to drag Kay along with her."
I thought Malice's expression may have softened to the slightest degree, but I couldn't be certain. She turned and began walking down the foot-worn path from our small house. I fell in at her side, knowing that our conversation was over for the time being. My friend was strong willed, and would only speak when she had a good reason to.
My friendship with Malice had been a strange thing in the time that I'd known her. I had started off terrified of her, when I knew her only as the fierce weapons instructor of the Knights of Ethan, but she had shown me a softer side of herself, a side that hurt and felt just as keenly as I did. After that point, we had become good friends. We'd also been lovers on two occasions in the past, both those times drawn into each other's arms by the intensity of the moment. Perhaps it was that physical affection that had left me confused about what exactly Malice was to me. Wisp was a sister, but what role did the green-eyed warrior at my side play? She was nearly two hundred years older than I was, though she looked younger than me, the eternal youth of our kind working its magic. She was sometimes a mentor, and ever a teacher, but she was also a good friend who knew when to listen, and how to make me listen when I needed to. Since Kyeia's passing, though, things had become different between us in some way.
Malice was still always there when something needed to be done, and was quick to help in any situation where she knew she could be an asset, but her temper seemed quicker to fire, at least where I was concerned. Though she was friendly with Kay and Wisp, she seemed distant from me, as though I were a point of frustration to be avoided. I had asked Wisp if she knew what the problem was, but she had simply shrugged and said that Malice hadn't told her anything, and since she hadn't known us well before the quest to save Kye, she couldn't offer any insight. Wisp, though, was lying to me. She was bad at it. She knew something that she wasn't telling.
I had left the matter alone at that point, not wanting to push another member of our small family into disgruntlement with me. Besides, I realized some matters were better dealt with by oneself. I simply had not made any progress past that point. It would have been wiser of me to confront Malice, but I was stubborn. It was far easier to ignore the problem and hope that it eventually righted itself.
It was several hours into our walk before Malice finally decided to speak to me, and when she did, her voice held that edge of authority it had always maintained in the days before we had become friends, back when she was only my teacher. I sorely missed her friendship, but would not tell her so. What she had to say surprised me.
"What is wrong with you, Lowin?" She asked plainly.
I wasn't sure how to answer because I did not feel that anything was wrong with me. Surely I had many problems, and perhaps I had distanced myself from the others a bit since Kye died, but I was not mean, or completely absent. I looked at her blankly, confused.
"What is wrong with you?" She restated her question, an edge of dangerous anger touching her voice. "For two years now I have watched you sulk about the cabin, looking like the world is over, and though you don't complain you look like you've given up. So, what exactly is your problem?"
I thought about what she'd asked for a moment, my mouth hanging agape. I was perturbed with her for bringing such a topic up, but more so because she struck a valid point. In many ways I had given up. My love, Kye, was dead - and all the work that had gone in to saving her had been for nothing. I couldn't shake that reality, and what was worse, I had to live with the fact that my eyes, and the incredible strength and power I lived with every day, was the reward reaped from her death. That was eating me up inside, and had been ever since I had laid the gravestone that marked Kye's place of final rest. She had died for my sake, and I would live on and on until someone killed me, with the knowledge that I had played a part in the death of the one woman I loved.
"I haven't given up." I said feebly, knowing the words for false as I spoke them. My lackluster denial only served to prove the truth of Malice's accusation.
"By all that is foul in the world, Lowin, I understand that Kye's death has been hard on you, but it has been two years! You have a daughter that loves you dearly, and you barely know her. We've all watched you shrink away from us as time goes by, but how much longer are you going to keep this up?" The edge in Malice's voice had been replaced by a note of pleading.
I reacted hostilely without thinking, feeling as though Malice and Wisp were conspiring against me. At some level I knew it wasn't so, but the part of my mind responsible for rational thought failed me entirely.
"I know my daughter as well as any of you, and I'm tired of being told how she should be raised by you and Wisp. Why won't you two just leave me alone?!" The last question I nearly screamed, and immediately regretted it as Malice turned her head away from me and pulled her hood low over her face. The conversation was over, and I had proved only that Malice was right, and I was deeply wrong.
Kye was dead. I knew that. I had held her during her last moments of life, and I had dug the grave in which she was buried, but some part of me refused to move past that terrible event. It was as though I'd buried the best part of myself in that damp hole with her. Two years were gone, and while the pain had lessened, in the abyss left by the fading pain a great emptiness was growing that threatened to consume me. It lived in me in every task I tried to complete, and every smile I feigned. It lived in me when I looked at my daughter, a beautiful child whose face held so much of her mother, and it lived in every breath I stole from the world around me. Emptiness.
I turned to Malice, my mouth opening to offer some form of apology, but no sound came forth. I stared at the way the shifting fabric of her cloak, similar to my own but of an older design and not as cleverly adept at shifting color, clung to her tall, proud form. I had not raised a hand to her, but how deeply had my words struck, and why couldn't I make myself say that I was sorry? I turned my head away, and squinted the moisture from my eyes. It would be a long hunting trip indeed.
The tension between Malice and I did not lessen until she finally found sign of a herd of Kazeal in the area, nearly four days into our hunting trip. Kazeal were slightly smaller than deer in size, but had much heavier bodies. They traveled in herds, grazing on any plant life below knee height. They were slow runners, but each had a set of three razor sharp horns atop their head, which made them unappealing to most predators. With our journey's goal in sight, Malice showed the closest semblance of good humor she'd had over the course of our entire journey.
Even I was feeling better as we drew closer and closer to the herd. I had feared that we would need to travel much further afield before finding edible game with winter looming over us. Kazeal were not great eating, but they could certainly keep us all from starving. Wisp, Malice and I really ate very little due to our Knights of Ethan lineage, and Tyvel of course needed nothing at all, but Kay ate as much as any growing human child. Between the four of us, we would need to have some store of food for the long winter months. Even in our warmer climate, the winter could last a dangerous amount of time for those who did not prepare.
We tracked the herd for an hour before it finally came into sight. The forest landscape we'd been traveling had opened up onto a wide, spacious expanse of grass still growing tall despite the coming onset of winter. The Kazeal, hundreds of them, were wandering through the fields, their horned heads popping up in random sequence to watch for any threat. Malice had brought us wide around them, keeping the wind in our faces, so as not to come in downwind of the creatures, a move that could be disastrous to a successful hunt. With our shifting cloaks wrapped tight about us, we would be nearly impossible to see in the tall grass. We descended a sloping hill to the edge of the grass, traveling with all the silent grace our powerful pawed feet would allow.
I tu
rned my wolf-like ears, a gift stolen from a dangerous creature known as a Fell Beast; the same creature which had lent me its legs and powerful claws; and I was able to hone in to the subtle sounds of movement in the grass. Over the years since acquiring my enhancements, I'd had much opportunity to perfect their use. By hearing alone, even if I couldn't see exactly where our quarry rested in the tall grass, I could tell how far away, and in which direction they traveled. Malice did not have my sharp hearing, so she relied on me to point out the direction in which we must move. When it came time, the action would be fast but brutal, and she needed to know what direction to take, lest she charge in the wrong direction and miss her opportunity to take multiple kills. We would need at least five beasts to make it through the winter.