Tahn

by L. A. Kelly

  “You mean hugging the Dorn?” Stuva asked, incredulous.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Vari added.

  “We won’t know that for sure,” Netta said. “Until we try. He does need to know that you appreciate what he has tried to do for you.”

  “You really want one of us to do that?” Vari asked, still unconvinced.

  “We should also pray for him. You agree, don’t you, Vari?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That can’t hurt.”

  Netta soon had the children tucked beneath blankets. It never took them long to fall asleep. She sat up for a while, thinking of Uncle Winn again and praying for her father. Lord, let him be alive somewhere.

  When sleep finally came to her, it was filled with dreams of her childhood home, relatives and friends gathered for the blessed holy day of the Christ’s birth. But sleep was interrupted in the wee hours of morning by Temas’s urgent tugging.

  “What was that, Lady? What was that?” The girl sounded frightened.

  Netta sat up. “What, child?”

  But Doogan answered her. “It sounded like an animal.”

  It wasn’t long before she heard it. It did sound like an animal, somewhere deep in the cave. An animal in pain.

  “Does something live in here?” Doogan was asking.

  But Netta’s heart pounded, remembering her first night in this cave with the Dorn. The sound was coming from the direction of the water.

  She didn’t know that it was him. But when the sound came again and rose to a scream, she was sure. It was muffled by the cave walls and did sound like some distant animal, but Netta knew Tahn was somewhere there in the darkness, shaking in torment.

  She stood up. She hadn’t woken him before, but surely she could now. It must be the same hideous dream. She couldn’t bear to know it was going on, even at a distance.

  “All of you wait here,” she told the children who were awake. “There’s nothing to worry about. I shall be back shortly.”

  She took a fresh candle and started down the passageway as the screams rose again.

  Vari sat up quickly. “No, Lady, don’t,” he said.

  But Netta didn’t hear him.

  “Mr. Dorn?” By the time she reached Tahn, he was curled on his side in violent tremors, his arms covering his head.

  “Father God,” she whispered. “We sorely need your help.” She set the candle on a rock in the middle of the room. How did you best wake someone in the throes of a ghastly nightmare?

  “Mr. Dorn,” she said again, approaching him slowly. She leaned and gently touched his arm. He shrank back like a caged animal, looking wild and wounded. For a brief instant, their eyes met, but he wasn’t awake. The hell was all over him, and she knew she’d made a mistake. But it was too late.

  He sprang at her, and she landed hard on the cave floor, his hands suddenly clutching her throat.

  “Tahn, stop! It’s the lady!” Vari cried as he rushed out of the black passageway.

  But Tahn didn’t stop. He couldn’t.

  “Stop!” Vari cried, running desperately at his friend. He grabbed at Tahn with both arms. The warrior released Netta long enough to wrench loose from the boy’s grasp and throw him halfway across the room.

  Then he turned again to Netta. She had jumped up and backed against the cave wall. “No, Mr. Dorn,” she said. “We mean you no harm. Lord, help him come out of this!”

  Vari had gotten up and grabbed the candle. He crept forward between them, holding out the flickering light like a weapon.

  “Vari, no,” Netta whispered. Tahn did not look so much like an animal to her now. He was a child, terrified and in pain.

  But Vari stood fast. “You can’t get to her,” he said. “The flames are between you.” He brandished the candle in Tahn’s direction.

  And Tahn shrank from it. He retreated to the far wall, where he sank to the floor, covering his head again. He let out a wrenching cry.

  Vari set the candle down and stepped toward him.

  “No!” Tahn screamed.

  Netta couldn’t bear it. “Lord, deliver him!”

  Tahn put his head down to his knees. He was trembling still. Vari sat down, watching him.

  “Whether a dream or demons hold you,” Netta said, “the Lord would have you in your right mind again, Mr. Dorn. No one harms you here.”

  He looked up at them, and it was as though it were little Duncan sitting there. But he stood and turned away from them.

  “Tahn?” Vari said. “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t answer. He just walked away into a black passageway that neither Vari nor Netta knew.

  “Well.” Vari sighed. “Let’s go back to the youngsters.”

  “Are you sure he’s all right?”

  “No. But I’m sure I’m not going after him. When he comes out, he’ll be all right.”

  9

  Tahn sat alone in the blackness. He wasn’t sure of everything that had happened, but he knew it was the dream, and they had come, and he had fought them.

  Why didn’t they know to leave him alone? But in a cave full of children, how long might it be before it happened again? How long before someone got hurt?

  He must not let himself sleep here again. He would find another place, somewhere in the woods. But he knew that was no solution. Were his screams loud enough, they still might find him.

  No, it seemed he could not sleep at all without endangering those he wanted to protect. And what good was a protector who must be feared?

  He sighed deeply. What good was he to anyone? He did not wish to face the children again. Lady Trilett is right, he thought. I terrorize them. I terrorize her. I even terrorize myself.

  He thought of the knife he always had with him. Perhaps it would be best to slash his throat now and not wait another day to make those flames his home.

  He stood, wondering where best to leave his body. Further into the cave tunnels, surely, where it could not be found.

  But he stopped. What would they do? He had brought another bottle for Vari. He must give it to him and tell him where to find the man who could supply him with more. He must see that the children knew the way to the towns and how to find food. He could not leave them yet. Not so unprepared. And he must not leave his body in the cave depths at all, lest they search for him and become lost. No, he must just ride away one night and never come back. But business first. He must leave them able to survive on their own.

  When Tahn finally returned to his chamber, Vari was waiting. For the opium, Tahn decided. He was needing it so often.

  He pulled the bottle from his pocket. “I want you to come to town with me again,” he said. “So you’ll learn where to find what you need if I am away.”

  Vari was just watching him and said nothing.

  “Has the lady resumed her lessons?” Tahn asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. When they are finished, we’ll take two of the other boys with us. They need to know the towns and how to get there.”

  “Tahn …”

  The warrior turned to look at the youth. Then he held out the bottle in his hand.

  But Vari didn’t take it. “Tahn, sir,” he said. “I … I pray for you.”

  Tahn bowed his head. Somehow, from Vari, that was not really a surprise.

  “I appreciate what you did for me,” the youth continued. “Anyone else would have let me die.”

  But Tahn was not able to address his gratitude. “Take the bottle, Vari,” he told him. “Get it done while we are alone so we can attend to business.”

  Vari stared at the bottle and then the haunted eyes of the man who held it. And he made a decision on the spot. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  Tahn was quiet as he thought about what that would mean. “Vari,” he said. “It will hurt.”

  “I don’t care. I’m sick of it.”

  Tahn looked down at the bottle in his hand. Vari was a youth of courage. For so long, he’d been sick of it too. But what might
be happening around him in the span of time needed for the drug to leave his system? “I can’t be out of my senses for three days,” he said quietly. “I must think of the little ones.”

  Vari nodded his head. “There will be a time for you.”

  “You’d best not ride to town today,” Tahn told him. “You always drink in the morning. You’ll be shaking for it by noon.”

  “I prayed with the lady night before last,” he said. “I trust God will help me.”

  Tahn remembered his own prayer for Vari on the mountain, and something broke within him. Vari will know God and the peace of God the rest of his days! Would that it might have been possible for me! He turned away, suddenly unable to bear the boy’s presence.

  Netta was dismayed by the look on Tahn’s face as he brushed past them. She had hoped he would be all right when he came out, as Vari had said. But he wasn’t.

  Little Temas had seen it too. She jumped up and ran toward him. “Mr. Dorn, sir—”

  Tahn turned around slowly, unable to ignore the child’s call.

  She hesitated for an instant and then clung at his waist in a huge hug.

  Tahn patted the girl’s head with a shaking hand and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, everyone was looking at him. “Return to your lesson, girl,” he said and turned from her quickly to go outside.

  Netta followed him with her eyes.

  “I don’t think he liked that,” Temas said sadly.

  “Don’t think that,” Netta told the girl. “You did the very best thing you could have done.”

  She looked at all the children and their carefully drawn letters in the dust. Vari was just coming up from the other chamber. “Jesus said we are to love one another,” she told them. “You mustn’t hesitate. You need it from each other dreadfully. But I fear your teacher has never known such things. He will need help learning to receive them for his own.”

  She glanced toward the passage out. “Vari,” she asked. “Can you continue for me?”

  “Yes, Lady,” he told her, glad that she would ask. It pleased him that she would take her leave of them so quickly and run to follow the Dorn.

  Tahn was in the trees, brushing Smoke’s side, when the lady found him.

  “Had I wanted your company, I would have stayed within,” he said.

  “I understand, but I wanted to talk to you, please.”

  “I told you never to follow a dark angel into the darkness, Lady. I might have killed you last night.” His face felt tight.

  “You are not a dark angel, Tahn Dorn,” she said. “You are a child and a man, both hurting terribly.”

  He looked over the horse’s back.

  “How long have you had such dreams?”

  He didn’t want to talk about it. He would rather mount and ride, go now and never come back. But he knew he wouldn’t. “Years,” he answered finally. “I was a child.”

  She nodded. “A child with scars from burning water and the cruelty you could not escape?”

  He looked down at the ground, putting the two together in his mind for the first time. The horrible hellfire waiting for him, and that terrible time so long ago when he’d screamed without remedy at the burning pain. How could she know?

  “Mr. Dorn, you have carried your weight of pain all your life, but it need not continue so.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said suddenly. “It can do nothing but continue! You ask me of my dreams. I know from them what the future holds. For years I have known! It was the dreams more than Samis that ruled me. The hell flames kept me obedient to him, because I knew how surely I would meet them were I not.”

  He looked so desperate. Netta wanted to reach for his hand, but she couldn’t. “You do his evil deeds no more,” she said. “It does not rule you now.”

  He sighed. “I have learned the folly of delay. How is it better to put off for a few hours or days what is inevitable? I shall die and I shall burn, all in a matter of time.”

  She was struck by the absolute hopelessness of his words. She had never before met anyone so utterly convinced of hell who was not running for the remedy. “You believe in God, do you not?”

  “I was taught not to,” he said. “But I know better.” He slapped Smoke’s rump, and the animal walked away.

  “Then why do you not turn to him?” she asked.

  “Turn to him?” He looked at her with fear in his eyes. “Lady,” he said, “I have no great longing to hear his rebuke.” He left her quickly and disappeared into the trees.

  Her heart pounded. Had he never heard, never, about forgiveness? Nor the mercy of God? He must not go on with such a burden! “Mr. Dorn!” she cried, running after him.

  Suddenly he was before her. “What do you want?” he raged. “Haven’t I said do not follow me? Do not ever follow me, for your safety’s sake! You can’t change what’s mine. Sow your seed where there is hope. In the children.”

  “There is always hope,” she said softly. “For you as well. God knows what you’ve done. But Christ prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers. Do you think he would not forgive you?”

  “Please.” Tahn turned away. He couldn’t bear this. Better never to see a treasure you can’t touch, never to hear of its unreachable goodness.

  But she grabbed his arm. “Mr. Dorn!” she pleaded. “Listen to me! You know the judgment of God is real. But the Satan who hates you does not want you to hear of God’s mercy! Jesus died as the bearer of your penalty. You need not carry such torment when Jesus has torn away the chains of hell by his blood. Have you not heard that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life?”

  He stared at her. She was the widowed Trilett heiress. How could she speak to him so? “How could you believe these things for me?” he asked. “How can you not wish me the flames for the sake of your husband?”

  “I have forgiven you,” she said. “But God prepared a way for that long before I was able. Do not fear him, Mr. Dorn. He has always loved you and shall not turn you away.”

  It couldn’t be as she said. Could it? He was afraid to reach for such a hope lest it be dashed away. He whistled for Smoke. “I need to go.”

  “No,” she told him. “We have food enough for now. I will leave you alone to think, if that is what you need truly.” She turned again toward the cave. “God be with you, sir,” she said. “Remember, when you are able, how much the little ones respect you and long for your company.”

  He didn’t look at her and didn’t try to answer. He only stood in silence with a weight on his heart as she walked away from him and went back inside.

  10

  Vari was not shaking by noon for lack of the drug. He seemed to be bearing no ill effects of his decision. Tahn took him and Stuva, Tam, and Briant exploring in the countryside around them. The following day he took Stuva and Tam into Merinth.

  All the way there and all the way home, Tahn instructed the boys in things they might need to know about their location, its resources, and winter survival. They returned with more clothing and an abundance of food.

  Tahn had been in a hurry to get back, to know if it had gotten more difficult for Vari. The first thing he did when he returned to the cave was look around for him. “Where’s Vari?” he asked.

  “He took Doogan with him to the stream you were at yesterday,” Netta told him. “He was determined to catch fish.”

  “You shouldn’t have let them go,” he snapped at her. “He should not be in the water right now.”

  “He seemed fine. The Lord has smoothed his path.”

  He turned from her and left to find them, muttering to himself about people without a common measure of sense. She just didn’t understand, that was all. Vari might have seemed fine then. But in ten minutes all that could change. He knew how Vari fished, underwater and by hand. It worried him. Doogan was a good swimmer but maybe not strong enough to help someone so much bigger if they were foolish enough to choose a deep pool.
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br />   He hurried Smoke along, though the horse hadn’t rested. He would go to the stream’s closest point and follow it upstream the way they’d gone yesterday. But suddenly he heard hooves. A running horse. He pulled the reins, jumped from the saddle, and led Smoke into the bushes for concealment. But it was Doogan who came crashing from the brush on the horse Tahn had left behind.

  “Doogan!” Tahn yelled, his heart suddenly pounding as it never had before. Something was wrong or Doogan would not be alone.

  “Sir!” The boy seemed amazed to see him out there. “Vari sent me for help!”

  “Did you leave him in the water?” Tahn asked, pulling Smoke forward.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Just lead me! Move! Go!” They charged the horses forward as fast as the underbrush would allow.

  You smoothed his path, did you, God? Tahn raged in his mind. Delivered him, did you?

  When Doogan stopped, Tahn leaped from the saddle and flew toward the water. But he stopped on the bank and stood, stunned.

  Vari was sitting on the opposite bank, holding the head of a dripping wet teenage girl. “She’s breathing all right now, I think,” he said. “I can’t believe you got here so fast.”

  Tahn crossed the stream to them, grateful for the cool flowing water to calm the pounding fire that had been in his chest. “What happened?” he asked as he knelt beside them.

  “I think she fell from up there.” Vari pointed to where the bank rose steeply just past them. Mud had been giving way along the bank, creating a newly precarious drop-off. At the bottom of it, at stream’s edge, lay an overturned basket.

  Tahn looked carefully at the girl. She had a cut on her face, and what would become some nasty bruises on her cheek and one arm. But Vari was right that she seemed to be breathing well.

  “You pulled her from the water?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “She must’ve hit her head. She wasn’t making it good at all. We heard the splash.”