by Alec Hutson
“What happened to my da?” he asked, a coldness pooling in his stomach.
The men shifted, glancing at each other and muttering.
“He’s dead,” Davin said, and Nel gasped.
Keilan’s hands tangled in his horse’s mane as he tried to steady himself. He swallowed, fighting back the numbness.
“How did he die?”
“Don’t matter how he died. Just means there’s nothing for you here so you can turn around and go.”
“How did he die?” Keilan repeated, anger replacing his shock.
“Of grief for having such an evil son,” Davin said harshly, and spat again.
“That’s not true,” Keilan said, his voice rising. The sea inside him had begun to churn, stirred by his rage. “how did he die?” he cried, and flung out his hand towards the villagers.
Fire geysered higher from the torch Davin held, and his uncle screamed something unintelligible, throwing it to the ground and scrambling backwards. The torch exploded when it struck the path in a shower of sparks and a rush of hot air, and from the swirling conflagration a shape took form, a creature with long, crooked limbs molded from fire, with eyes like black embers smoldering in its horned head.
The villagers broke and fled, tossing down their makeshift weapons. The flame-creature watched them go, dwindling as the fire subsided.
Keilan’s head was spinning, and he might have slid from his horse if Nel hadn’t appeared beside him, propping him up.
“What was that?” Senacus asked, his voice hard.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to… ”
The paladin gave him a long look, his jaw clenched, and then snapped his reins, leaving Keilan and Nel alone on the road.
“Did you know you could do that?” Nel asked, her hand still holding his arm.
“Yes,” Keilan whispered. “But it wasn’t the same the last time… ”
“We need to return you to the Scholia,” she said, staring at the blackened remains of the torch. “You have to be taught to control it, or it will consume you. It has happened before, even to apprentices.”
Keilan did not reply. He felt the power within him recede, the sea he drew from growing calm.
Nel sighed. “Well, it looks like we won’t get a warm welcome. How many are in your village?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one hundred?”
“And men who can fight?”
Nel made an exasperated face when she saw Keilan’s horrified expression. “I’m not saying we’re going to fight them. But it certainly seems like your uncle doesn’t want you back.”
“Twenty, twenty-five?”
“Two dozen fishermen armed with woodcutter’s axes do not frighten me. But if they did believe they had the numbers then they might rush at us, and I don’t think you want a bloodbath. Yes?”
Keilan nodded. “They’re not evil,” he said. “Most of them, anyway. Just scared, I suppose.”
Nel reached up into her sleeves and adjusted the daggers strapped to her forearms. “It won’t come to violence, Keilan. They’re not warriors, and they know that. Perhaps they’d try and hurt you if it was just us… but they’d never dare anything with Senacus here. They’ll probably stay hidden in their huts or the forest and wait for us to go. But we should still be careful.”
“I hope you’re right,” Keilan said, noticing she had slipped one of her daggers into her hand. He hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.
As Nel had predicted, when they rode into the village they found it empty, the windows shuttered and the doors closed to them. On most days there would be children chasing each other around the Speaker’s Rock, and old men playing tzalik in the shade of the huts, but today the common space had been abandoned. They were not alone, though. Keilan felt eyes watching him as he rode his horse through the square. He remembered the last time he had been here, six months and a lifetime ago, when the entire village had stood in a crescent around the rock and watched fearfully as Senacus had declared him to be a sorcerer. That had ended in swirling chaos, children and women screaming, his father and Sella fighting the lightbearers from Chale as the Pure’s radiance ushered him into darkness.
Keilan slid from his saddle, the crunch of his boots in the gravel the only sound in the silent village. “This way,” he said softly, his breath catching in his throat as he led his horse towards the small house on the edge of the square. It looked much the same, though there weren’t any bushels of herbs hanging in the window frames, and the path to the door didn’t appear to have been trodden in quite some time.
They had been telling the truth. His father was gone.
Keilan swallowed away the ache in his throat and approached the door. He hesitated, his hand hovering over the knotted wood. He felt Nel come up beside him, and though she didn’t say anything he drew strength from her presence.
He gripped the black iron knocker his father had scavenged from the beach and rapped once, softly, but there was no answer from within. He pushed the door open.
The hut was empty—the small table where they’d taken their meals was gone, as were the chairs and the big pot that had once been suspended over the cook pit. Their bedrolls had vanished, just a few stale rushes scattered where he and his father had slept. Even the workbench where his father had whittled toys and whistles out of driftwood was missing. No recent tracks scuffed the hard-packed dirt floor.
His heart fell when he saw the chest that his father had rescued from the sea with his mother was gone as well. But surely something as valuable as books would still be somewhere in the village? Or sold to someone in Chale? Would they burn them if they thought they were tainted by his family’s sorcery?
Of course they would. Dizziness washed over Keilan, and he had to reach out to steady himself on the wall. What had they done to his father? The aching sorrow in his chest sharpened into something else. He felt the roiling sorcery inside him start to churn, stirred by his rising anger. Whoever had hurt his father and mother would suffer. He could tear apart this village with a thought. He would find those responsible and punish them.
“Keilan,” Senacus said from outside the hut, his voice wary. “Someone’s coming here.”
Holding tight to his rage, Keilan turned and strode from his childhood home. His skin tingled as he fought to keep the sorcery from slipping out of his control, his breath coming in short, labored gasps.
He would show them something to fear. Something to hate.
A man was stumping across the Speaker’s square, leaning heavily on a crutch. Keilan blinked. Could it… could it be?
“Keilan!” his father cried, his voice cracking.
“Da,” Keilan whispered hoarsely, the tenuous grip he held on his sorcery slipping… but the anger stoking it vanished instantly as well.
“Da!” he yelled, stumbling towards his father. Relief flooded him, and he felt the tears finally come.
His father was alive!
They came together, and his father rocked backwards, unsteady. “Careful, careful,” he said, clutching at Keilan to keep himself from falling.
“Uncle Davin said you were dead!”
His father wrapped him in an embrace, crushing him against his damp beard. “I thought you were dead. I thought you must be dead.” He glanced over at the silent, watching paladin and his eyes hardened. “The Pure… he let you return?”
Keilan stepped back, putting his hands on his father’s shoulders. There was more gray threading his da’s hair and beard than he remembered, the lines creasing his face a bit deeper. But there was a brightness in his eyes that Keilan hadn’t seen in years.
“I was rescued from the Pure.” Keilan turned and gestured towards where Nel stood watching them, a relieved smile on her face. “By her. And others.”
His father shook his head in bewilderment. “Wait—you were rescued from the paladin? But here he is? And why didn’t you re
turn until now? Or send word?”
Keilan flushed. “I’m… I’m sorry, Da. We had to flee, and everything moved so quickly. I should have tried to get a message back to the village… ”
His father waved his words away. “It’s nothing. Nothing. You’ll have to tell me everything that’s happened.”
“And what happened to you?” Keilan asked, pointing to his father’s splinted leg.
“There’s not much to tell, but let’s sit down and get a hot cup of bitter root in you.”
Keilan took a step towards their house, but his father laid a hand on his arm. “Not that way, boy. That’s not my home anymore.”
Keilan and his companions followed his father towards the opposite edge of the village, to a hut of mottled gray mud that edged a small copse of stunted white-barked trees. A well-tended assortment of flowers and herbs fringed the stone path leading to the entrance, which was filled by a slight woman with long black hair wearing a checkered dress. When she saw Keilan approaching her eyes widened, and her hands fluttered to her mouth. Then her gaze shifted to the Pure striding behind them and her face paled, her hands falling away in astonishment.
“Mam Bellas?” Keilan said, recognizing the woman. “This is her house.”
“Aye, boy. And my home now, too.”
Keilan glanced at his father in surprise, but his eyes were fixed on the woman waiting for them.
“She’s a good woman.”
Keilan tried to remember what he could of Mam Bellas. She’d been one of the villagers quietly in the background of daily life, rarely coming to the Speaker’s Rock or the festival day celebrations, tending to her gardens and foraging in the woods. Her husband had died when she was very young, before Keilan had even been born. If his recollections were true, his fishing boat had been lost during a great storm that the rest of the village still spoke about with awe and dread. A few times, Mam Ru had sent Keilan to Mam Bellas’s hut to ask for an herb or spice, and he couldn’t recall the woman even speaking to him before she’d handed over what had been requested.
“Hello,” Keilan said, ducking his head in greeting when they reached the hut. Mam Bellas murmured something back, her face coloring.
“Come on,” his father said, ushering them all inside the hut and gesturing for them to sit on stools clustered around a smoldering cookfire. A battered metal pot was suspended above the flames, and Keilan smelled the distinctive flavor of bubbling bitter root. Mam Bellas hurried over and began pouring the pot’s contents into wooden cups, still avoiding looking directly at Keilan or the broad-shouldered paladin who seemed to fill the hut.
The inside of her house was as homely and well-kept as the gardens outside: sheaves of cut flowers hung on the walls, giving the hut an earthy, floral smell, and the tables and stools were well-maintained and cared for. Keilan’s breath caught in his throat when he saw his mother’s chest pushed up against one wall. A black and white cat was curled on its lid, basking in the sunlight slanting down through a circular window.
They settled themselves around the cookfire, Senacus’s stool almost disappearing beneath him. Keilan feared the stool would buckle and send the big man sprawling, but after giving a long groan of protest, the wood held.
“You’ve come from far away,” his father said, gesturing at Keilan’s travel-stained clothes. “Was it dangerous on the road?”
“The only time we were threatened,” Keilan replied, “was when we came to the village. Uncle Davin and some of the others tried to turn us away. He said you were dead.”
A dark cloud passed across his father’s face. “That bastard. I was here at home, resting, when Bellas came through the door talkin’ about how a big crowd of the men had come stumbling into the village with faces white as ghosts. A few of them quickly took their families and ran for the northern road. Others went hiding in their homes. She heard someone say your name an’ hurried back to tell me. Wish I could have seen the look on Davin’s face when you came up the road, high and mighty on your horse.”
His father leaned forward and squeezed Keilan’s leg. “Tell me what happened after he –” His father nodded towards Senacus. “—took you from the village. Where did ya get these fine clothes?”
“I never even made it to Chale,” Keilan said. It was strange speaking of that day—it felt like a lifetime ago, yet only a half a year had past. “We were ambushed on the northern road by warriors of Dymoria. Nel was commanding them.” He gestured in her direction and his father turned as if seeing her for the first time.
“You rescued my son? Deep thanks, lady.”
Nel shrugged. “I was just doing what the queen willed.”
“The queen?” his father repeated blankly.
“Queen Cein d’Kara of Dymoria,” Keilan said softly.
“Is that the red queen? The one the traders and mendicants talk about?”
“Aye,” Keilan replied, watching his father carefully.
“They say… they say she’s a sorceress.”
“She is.”
His father stared at the steam curling from his cup. “So that’s why… ”
“Aye.”
“Then you’re… ”
“Aye.”
His father’s brows drew together as he sipped at his bitter root tea. Then he nodded and set down his cup, sighing. “Ah. Well, I suppose I knew it in my bones. Your mother could do things that couldn’t be explained—she could smell a storm coming better than even the oldest fishermen, and there was a time I saw light just spark from nothing when she was around. And you always knew where the fish were hiding.” He reached up and smoothed out some of the tangles in his beard, an old habit he had when he was thinking hard on something. “So, this queen took you in, taught you some things?”
“Yes. But we learned of something terrible, so we had to come back from the west. Senacus helped us get here safely.”
His father turned to the paladin. “Thank you for bringing my son home,” he said gruffly.
Senacus looked uncomfortable, Keilan thought, but he accepted his father’s words with a curt nod. It must be strange to sit here beside the man whose son he had stolen away. Senacus took a quick sip of his tea, and Keilan had to hide a small smile as the bitterness surprised the paladin. It was an acquired taste.
“Ferris,” Senacus said, setting his cup down. “When I took Keilan from you, I did so because my order is entrusted with guarding the world against the dangers of sorcery.” His burning eyes found Keilan. “Your son is not evil. He is, in truth, a very good person. Kind, honest, and forgiving.”
Keilan lowered his head, embarrassed by the paladin’s praise.
“Loyal to his friends. But he does have powers within him that could cause great harm. All those with sorcery inside them do. We are here,” he continued, gesturing to encompass Nel and Keilan, “because we have been given a dark vision.”
“A vision?”
“From the Oracle of Lyr,” Keilan added quickly. “A glimpse into what might be.”
“Lyr… ” his father said slowly, rolling the word around in his mouth like it was an exotic food he’d never thought he’d taste. “I’ve heard stories of the Oracle. She showed you a vision?”
Senacus nodded. “Yes. A world shattered, destroyed by dark sorcery. And we were chosen to receive this warning because she thought we have a chance to avert what’s coming.”
His father blinked in confusion, pulling at his beard. “Well, you’re a paladin of Ama. Seems like you might be able to do something about it. But my boy?”
“Da,” Keilan said, leaning closer to put his hand on his father’s unsplinted leg. “In the vision… I saw someone… ” He bit down on his lip, unsure how to broach the topic of his mother. “But before we talk about that, I want to know what happened to you?”
His father shook his head, as if clearing it of what they’d been talking about. He r
apped on the wooden strips that splinted his leg. “Foolishness, that’s what. It was… it was hard after you were taken, lad. I don’t even really remember the first few months. I never fished. Every day I drank until blackness took me—when the coin ran out I sold what I could so I could buy more. I sold your mother’s necklace, my grandfather’s brooch.” His eyes drifted to the chest pushed up against the far wall. “But I didn’t sell your books.”
His brow creased, as if he was pained by remembering those dark times. “I suppose deep inside I wanted to die, though my thoughts were too sodden at the time for me to know this. Anyway, one day I wandered away from the village, down to the rocks. I remember tryin’ to find my footing on the slickness, hearing the ocean, thinking I could hear your voice…
“Then I woke up in here, my leg hurting more than my head. I’d slipped and fallen, and my leg had snapped. Lucky I hadn’t ended up in the water or I’d have gone to meet your mother right then and there.”
Mam Bellas had moved beside his father while he was talking, and he reached out to touch her hand, lacing their fingers together. “She saved me. She had been gathering out in the forest and she’d seen me tumble on the rocks. Somehow managed to drag me back here and set my leg.” He grinned affectionately at Mam Bellas, and she blushed. “She’s stronger than she looks. Anyway, she cared for me, helped me get my strength back. Wouldn’t bring me drink no matter how much I asked. And then one day I woke up with my head clear for the first time in months. Knew I didn’t want any rum, and knew I loved her and didn’t want to live alone no more.” He glanced at Keilan and then away, as if afraid of what he might see.
He wants my permission, Keilan realized, and something caught in his throat. In the years since his mother’s death he’d watched his father wither away until all that remained was a husk of the man he’d been before. But there was a change now, and the way he touched Mam Bellas’s fingers so tenderly…
“I’m happy for you, Da,” he said, laying his hand on his father’s knee.
“Thank you, lad,” his father murmured. Was that a glimmer in his eye? Surely not.