by Simon Birks
“There is an artefact. A weapon of sorts.”
“I don’t deal in weapons.”
“A weapon of sorts. It has other properties. For instance, it will heal those scars on your back.”
“Heal scars? This sounds like magic.”
“Not magic. Magic has an end. You cast a spell, and then it is finished. This is different.”
“What is it then?” Orsa said. She was certain she wanted nothing to do with it, but something about the man piqued her curiosity. “Where is it?”
“It will be here in the morning,” he said. “It is up to you to choose whether you want to use it, or not. If you choose not to, be careful about whose hands it falls into.”
She watched as the silhouette of the man got up.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Orsa said. “Why have you brought it to me? Why don’t you use it yourself?”
The man stopped at the cave entrance.
“Because I am already dead.”
*
“And was it there, in the morning?” Hoep asked her.
“Yes, I woke and where he’d sat there was a solid metal tube. A dark metal, almost black. I left it there for a while, but it didn’t seem special in any way. On the second day I felt brave enough to pick it up. It was warm to the touch. Nothing else. I had expected to feel something, but it seemed to be just a metal bar.”
“Did you ever see the man again?” Hoep asked.
“No, I guess I never expected to. How are those two doing?”
Hoep saw Orsa nod her head at Gideon and Ka Yeta. He looked over the ledge. Both were sound asleep.
“They’ll be out for a while. Do you want some food? We’ve got some downstairs.”
“I’m fine,” the thief said.
She looked sad, at least what Hoep could see of her did.
“What happened next?” he asked.
*
Orsa sat in the cave, eating her final meal of the day, when a noise, a high-pitched whine, caught her attention. Steadily the sound grew, until it felt like it was gnawing at her ears. She wasn’t certain where it was coming from, not until she looked towards the metal bar, placed on a rock nearby.
It’s moving, she thought. Vibrating.
It’s a warning.
Orsa picked up her sword and bow, and stole to a hiding place. A minute passed and nothing happened. Two minutes. Three. Just as she was about to take a step back into the cave a figure came into view. Orsa watched its shadow fall across the rocks opposite her. Near the fire, her bedroll was made up to look as though she was asleep within its folds. Without warning, an arrow embedded itself deeply within it. And then another, and another.
Orsa set her own arrow on the bow, stood slowly and fired at the shape. It cried out and clutched its side, dropping its weapon. Instantly she was out, wielding her sword, the hilt of which she used to strike the figure on the head. It went down like a dead weight. She rolled the body onto its front and bound the arms. Then, she rolled it onto its back, so she could see its face. It was a man, an old man, with scars on his cheeks. They weren’t battle scars, however, they were hexes; this was a man of magic.
He was not dead, yet, although the arrow had struck him in the arm, and he was losing a lot of blood.
Orsa gagged him with a piece of cloth, and took the bar from its resting place. She put it near the intruder. It started to vibrate again. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster. She looked at the man. He too, was starting to vibrate, resonating with the bar.
As she watched, a fine mist seemed to lift off of the man. It came through his clothes, and from his exposed skin. It was frightening and mesmerising.
He’s starting to disintegrate.
Orsa didn’t know if she should try and save him, or even if she could. She was certain the bar could take them both if it wanted.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The mist grew thicker, and Orsa was expecting to see his blood flow upon the floor; but there was no blood, no fluids at all.
Just when Orsa the thief didn’t think it could get any worse, the magic man opened what was left of his eyes. The eyelids became the mist, and what were once his eyes stared out in horror at Orsa. She knew he was in great pain, yet unable to utter any noise of suffering.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, knowing it wasn’t enough.
The man stared, and as he did, his eyes disintegrated. A few moments later, there was nothing left of him but his clothes.
The bar stopped vibrating. Orsa ran to the edge of the cave, and vomited. When she was able to bring herself under control, she turned and stared, dumbstruck, at the metal bar.
She didn’t touch it for a week.
*
“Then I heard about the battle,” she told Hoep. “And I’d had enough of the fighting. Enough of everything. I picked it up and went to war.”
*
Orsa travelled on foot. The battlefield was five days away. She would probably get there before the armies did. She would set up camp and wait. She wanted to stop the war. Had to stop it. They were calling it the final battle, but she didn’t believe it. The war would continue, and it might drag on for many years, how many people would die then?
She didn’t know what the bar would do when she delivered it to the battlefield. It wouldn’t be good, of course, but she didn’t think she needed to worry about the outcome. Orsa was certain these would be her final days. She would be one of the victims.
The bar had not vibrated since the magic man was killed. It didn’t seem interested in any of her normal traders. Perhaps the bar had brought him to her on purpose. It was entirely possible.
She travelled light; a sword and a bow, and some food to see her on her way. She had a little money, though she doubted she would need to use it. As each day began to fade, she looked for abandoned buildings to sleep in. There were plenty to be found; the war and its casualties made sure of that.
The first two days passed without incident. She kept to the routes less travelled, and avoided anyone who threatened to cross her path. She found a small house on the first night, and a shed on the second. Neither were overly comfortable, but she wasn’t looking for comfort.
On the third night, she found a house, unlocked and abandoned. She was tired, and her body yearned for rest, but she remained a thief first and foremost, and investigated each room thoroughly. This had been a family home. One bedroom had toys, neatly packed away. Another held the most ornate bed she had ever seen. Each room was furnished with solid, heavy, and expensive pieces of furniture. The clothes were very fine, not workmanlike in any way.
She inspected the bathroom, where she found fragrant soap, and soft cloths. She felt jealous of the house’s former occupants. It was a life she wished herself living; perhaps would have done had she not tried to advise her stupid brother of his shortfalls. Thinking of him made the scars on her back itch. It always did, but if she wanted to sleep tonight she knew better than to scratch at them.
Orsa sighed. She could have been these rich people, but instead she was a thief with ugly scars and even more painful memories.
But it’s me who’s still alive.
She went down to the kitchen. They had an impressive stove. Spotless, with all the crockery stacked neatly on shelves. She looked in the larder. The vegetables had not gone over.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “How stupid.”
She looked around at the kitchen again. It was clean. Tidy.
Lived in.
“I was told you would come,” came an old woman’s voice from a darkened corner of the room.
Orsa put her hand on her sword.
“Very wise,” said the woman, “But you’ve no need. I am not here to harm you. On the contrary, I believe I’m here to help.”
The woman stepped forward. She was still mostly hidden in shadows, but the thief could see she had a gentle face.
“Is this your house?” Orsa asked.
The woman shook her head. “No
. It is the house of my daughter and her husband, and their child. But… they don’t need it anymore. I live far away, many days. I was told to come here, and to tell you to rest little. No more than two hours. Then you must set out to the edge of the battleground, where you must hide until it is time.”
“How will I know?”
“The Vengeance will tell you.”
“The Vengeance?”
“The object you carry. It will tell you, and then you will set it free.”
Orsa waited for more. The old lady moved to the large kitchen table and sat.
“You have come a long way to tell me what I have already planned.”
“I’m sure, but there is something else…,” she said. “Please, may I see the Vengeance?”
Orsa hesitated.
“You have nothing to worry about, Orsa the Thief. Orsa the King’s sister. Please?” The old lady held out her hands.
Orsa removed the bar, the Vengeance, from a pocket in her trousers, and unwrapped the cloth around it. She placed it on the table in front of the woman.
“What is your name?” Orsa asked.
The woman smiled to herself.
“It doesn’t matter. The ones it mattered to are no longer here to care.”
Orsa looked at her face. It held scars similar to the ones the magic man bore.
“You are magical?”
She smiled.
“Magic is just another word for the unknown. Now, stand back.”
Orsa heard the noise of the Vengeance starting to vibrate. She watched as it lifted up from the table, and moved across to the old woman’s outstretched hands.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Because it needs me. It showed me a way I could help, and I accepted. It was my choice. It was the right choice. Now go rest, the Vengeance will be here when you wake.”
“And what of you?”
“The calm of me will be at peace. The rage in me, and it is a lot of rage, will be with the Vengeance.”
The noise got louder, but Orsa turned away. She left the kitchen and went to the main room, which had a rug and cushions she could be comfortable on. She lay down and covered her ears against the thrumming noise. The old woman made no noise herself. No scream, no call, and when Orsa woke two hours later, there was nothing to be found of her but her clothes on the kitchen chair, and the Vengeance, on the table.
*
Orsa fell quiet. Hoep was sorry for her. It was such a sad story. He could see her difficulty, her unease, in recalling the events that had happened so long ago. He didn’t know if she would carry on, and that was fine. He was happy to just sit with her.
Then, when he’d decided she must have stopped, she began again.
“I sometimes wonder why I went through with it. Why I didn’t just turn on my heels and run as far away as I could, but it didn’t even cross my mind. I was there to deliver the Vengeance, so that is what I did.”
*
Orsa left the house, the Vengeance wrapped once more in the cloth. She travelled without rest for two days, moving swiftly, keeping an eye and ear out for any soldiers or sentries along the way. As the battlefield grew closer the task became harder. She was nearly spotted a few times, and it was only her quick wits and her ability to get into small hiding places that kept her alive.
As dawn began to break on her fifth day since setting out from the cave, she found the place to wait: a tree on the edge of a field, itself on the periphery of the battlefield. She climbed it quickly and hid in its topmost branches, tied to a branch amongst the dense leaves.
She waited, cramped and uncomfortable. Hours went by. Orsa felt the tension grow. Even before she heard the shouts of the soldiers, the atmosphere had changed, had become more threatening. Then, when they did arrive, it was a cacophony. Orsa felt isolated, enclosed, trapped. The thief closed her eyes against it, and slept.
She woke when the battle started properly, and was surprised by how far away it was. The shouts and the clashes of weapons were muffled by the distance. In her pocket, the Vengeance felt agitated. She took it out, unwrapped the metal tube and held it out. As she waited for it to work, she wondered what it was, and why it was she who had been chosen to deliver it. She wondered about the old magic woman, and the magic man. She wondered about her brother, and especially of his death.
It was clever, she decided. The Vengeance was clever. It had chosen her; someone who had a reason to use it. And she was quick, and experienced and skilled. She was always going to carry out its wishes. And if she didn’t? She shuddered at the thought of what the Vengeance would do to her. It would surely consume her, rage and all, then move onto someone else.
Her mind made up, Orsa lowered her hands. The Vengeance hung in the air. Magic, she thought.
Not magic, just unknown.
Then it moved off, towards the battle. Off and up. Orsa tried to keep track of it, but the leaves made it difficult to see.
Still the swords clanged together, and the screams of the men came. One minute, two, three. She wondered what it was doing. How would she know when it started?
And then the first Vengeance came.
The darkness was complete. Orsa screamed, and could hear how muffled it sounded. No one would have heard it.
The battlefield sounds were blotted out. The thief was lost in the black, and soon she didn’t know whether her eyes were open or shut. She wondered if this was what had happened to the others. She wondered if this was what it was like to be consumed. She waited, scared and curious and guilty. At some point she must have fallen asleep, because she woke hours later, still tied to the branch, and the darkness was gone. At least, the complete darkness. Now the sky was lit by the moon, and she could see the branches around her.
I’m still alive.
And another thing; her back. The scars were gone. She could feel it. She laughed, a strange noise, a lonely noise.
Orsa carefully made her way down the tree and headed towards the battlefield. She didn’t want to, but it was her duty to look. She had caused this.
The thief arrived just under an hour later. The ground was covered with items; discarded pieces of armour and weapons, many bloodstained. It was obvious the battle had been in full flow. Yet there was no one to be seen. The Vengeance had taken them all.
But where was it?
It wasn’t hanging in the air as she thought it might have been, and if it was on the ground she was never going to find it amongst all the debris. It had gone.
Orsa turned, and began to make her way from the battlefield. She looked up, and she stopped. There was someone standing at the edge. A woman. An old woman.
The old woman.
Orsa looked at her, but didn’t move. What had the man who’d visited the cave said?
Because I am already dead.
The woman floated towards her over the battlefield and stopped a few feet from the thief.
“Hello,” the old woman said.
It was the most normal of greetings, and it took Orsa by surprise.
“Hello,” she replied. “What’s happened?”
The old woman smiled. A kindly smile.
“The Vengeance took them,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because that is what it does. It grows in power. Can you feel it?”
“I do not have it any more.”
Another smile. This one sad.
“It has grown,” she said. “And it needed something larger, more complex.”
The scars on my back, Orsa thought. It fixed me. And then, a moment later, it fixed itself.
The old woman nodded.
“I see you understand. The light will harm you, it wanted me to tell you that.”
“What if I don’t want it?” Orsa said, feeling anger well inside her. “I never asked for it.”
“The Vengeance let you live. It can destroy you at any moment if you try to harm it. I suggest you treat it well.”
“I am a prisoner,” Orsa said.
&n
bsp; The old woman nodded.
“If there is something my life taught me, it’s that we’re all prisoners. We all limit ourselves. That is why I am here. The Vengeance used me, and now it’s let me go. It has given me what I wanted most. My freedom. Goodbye, Orsa the Thief. Orsa the King’s sister. Orsa the Vengeance.”
“But…” Orsa began, but the woman raised her arms, and looked up to the sky.
As she watched, the woman’s body began to break apart, rising upwards into the world. Her fingertips went first. Orsa remembered that. And then the rest, dust particles rising from her. The thief wondered what was making them move, there was no wind.
Within a few seconds, the woman had gone, and Orsa stood alone.
She wanted to go home. She thought it to herself. You gave the woman her freedom, she thought. What I want is my home, my kingdom. And she wasn’t certain whether she heard it or not, but there seemed to be a single word spoken back at her from the ruin of the battlefield.
“Yes,” it said.
*
Hoep looked at her. Her story was finished, and she looked tired. He got himself up into a crouch.
“Where are you going?” Orsa asked.
Hoep smiled and went into the dark.
“You must not…” she said.
“Try stopping me,” Hoep replied.
He sat down next to her, and rested his back against the wall. He had grown tired, too. He held out his hand.
*
Orsa looked at the man who was next to her. Right next to her, holding out his hand. He wasn’t afraid.
“But I am dangerous,” she said to him.
He shook his head.
“I do not think it is you who is dangerous. The Vengeance, most definitely, but you are not the Vengeance.”
“It might hurt you,” Orsa protested.
She liked this man. She did not want to be responsible for any harm coming to him.
Hoep smiled. A genuine, warm smile.
“I shouldn’t worry; I’m surprisingly relaxed about the whole death thing. I am a sacrifice waiting to happen. Now, take my hand. Stop being this prisoner and live a little.”
Orsa smiled. He was right. She had kept to the shadows for hundreds of years. Kept to herself. Frightened at what she was. But it wasn’t her. It was the Vengeance. With care, and with excitement, Orsa lifted her hand and put it into Hoep’s.