by John Marco
Her words baffled me. Not her question but her statement. I kept staring down at her unborn child. “White-Eye, I’m a fighter. A killer. You want a child who lives in peace. What can I possibly teach your baby?” I thought about it. “A boy should learn how to use a weapon, I suppose. And I’m a good horseman . . . I could teach your baby that.”
“Lukien, no,” said White-Eye. “Anyone could teach our baby those things.”
“What, then?”
White-Eye grew unusually serious. “You make me say this? You saved this city from invasion. You destroyed the demon that took away my Akari and made me blind. You are the hero of everyone in Jador. Lukien, boy or girl, you will teach my child the most difficult things of all. Things that cannot be learned from scrolls or stories: bravery and honor. But most of all, you will teach my baby goodness. Because even if you don’t think so, you are a good man, Lukien.”
I sat there. I nodded. But I didn’t argue with her because I could not even speak.
Ever gracious, she allowed my silence. She went back to her macramé, diligently making knots as I sat there beside her and watched the children play.
3
How can I describe Cricket? She’s like a mirror image, the opposite of what you think you see. She’s pretty but doesn’t care at all about looks. She hordes trinkets till they’re spilling out of her pockets. She complains about her chores but does them to perfection, and she loves to be alone but clings to me like bark. Near as we can tell she’s fourteen years old. Sometimes she acts half that age, sometimes twice it. She’ll talk for an hour then shut up tight for days, and no one—not even Minikin when she was alive—can ever figure out what’s going on inside her impish head.
The day we left Grimhold, Cricket was in the mood to talk. She wore the cape we’d made together out of the rass skin, proudly primping it over her little shoulders as her pony sauntered through the canyon. I’d gone to Grimhold myself so we could work on the cape together. When she saw me arrive, Cricket circled me like a child searching for sweets, wondering what I’d brought her. The sun was hot on the black cape as we rode, but Cricket didn’t care. She was full of questions and eager to get back to Jador. I was happy just to see her smiling.
A decent road winds from Grimhold to Jador, through a canyon of sheer, red rock. Inhumans and Jadori have used the road for decades, keeping their alliance secret. Before Gilwyn took over, Minikin was Grimhold’s mistress. She’d spent her vast lifetime searching for the kind of kids Gilwyn had been once. Blind kids or crippled, she brought them all to Jador for an Akari, for the chance to live a normal life. I’m an Inhuman now, too, in a way, because Malator keeps me alive. Without him, my old wounds would quickly kill me.
Cricket isn’t one of us. She has no Akari, and no use for one. She’s not blind or lame or deaf. She’s normal in every way—except for her broken memory—and it’s only because Minikin loved and pitied her that she has such access to our world. Seekers from the Bitter Kingdoms had found her in Akyre. She’d been wandering, they said, starved and alone. No family and no memory of one either. All she knew for sure was her name. Cricket.
I rode beside her on my horse, listening to her explanations. Ahead of us, the two Jadori warriors Gilwyn assigned as escorts bobbed on the backs of their green-scaled kreels.
“It was like a dream,” Cricket exclaimed. “Like it was talking to me. It was screaming, and no one else could hear it.” She turned, imploring me. “That must have happened to you once, right Lukien?”
“No, Cricket. I’ve never had a chicken talk to me.”
“With its eyes,” she stressed. “It knew I would help. I had to!”
“Uh huh.” I nodded, bored with her horseshit. “What about all the chickens you actually eat? Can’t they talk to you? And what about the cistern?”
“He told you that?” Cricket frowned. “Gilwyn’s an ass.”
“Hey!” I reined in my horse.
She kept riding for a while, then stopped. “Sorry.”
The warriors turned around to look at us. “Go,” I told them, waving them on. “It’s all right.”
I rode up close to Cricket. “You want to go live with the other Seekers in the shanties?”
“I’m not a Seeker.”
“Anyone who comes across the desert to Jador is a Seeker, Cricket. And any one of them would trade places with you. You live in the palace because Gilwyn lets you. So show him some respect.”
“I said I was sorry.” She sighed as she got her pony going. “You ain’t been in such a great mood either, you know. Like you got an itch or something.”
“Yes, I’ve got an itch. And I don’t need you making it worse. I come back from the desert and all I hear about is how worried everyone is about you. I’m not your mother, Cricket.”
“What’s itchin’ you, Lukien?”
I still hadn’t told her about Gilwyn’s idea. I’d meant to, but the days just sort of slipped away. “Nothing,” I said, “forget it,” and reached up to scratch beneath my eye patch. Cricket stared, trying to see under it.
“You got an eyeball under there?”
“Of course I do. It’s gone white, that’s all. Sometimes I get a grain of sand in there. Makes me crazy.”
“How’d that happen to you? You’re a handsome man, Lukien. Bet you were pretty to look at when you were younger.”
I smiled, because she was so good at changing subjects. “You’re dodging, Cricket. We’re not done talking about the cistern.”
“I’ll paint it back to normal,” she groaned. “So what happened?”
“A Norvan scimitar.”
“From when you were a mercenary?”
“That’s right.”
“Must make it hard to fight, having one eye.”
“Two would be better,” I admitted. “Doesn’t hurt any more, though. Malator sees to that. Nothing hurts me anymore. Not for long, anyway.”
We both got quiet, the horse hooves echoing around the canyon. The claws of the kreels clicked on the sandy road as their tongues flicked in and out. Cricket looked at me. She wanted a story.
“Norvor’s a lot like Akyre, I guess. Just a bunch of barons fighting for territory now. No real king or queen any more. There’s been fighting in that part of the world since I can remember.”
“Yup,” nodded Cricket. That much she already knew. Everyone figured it was the fighting that took her family away, but Cricket couldn’t remember.
“I had to be a freelance,” I continued. “Didn’t want to be, but I was exiled from Liiria then. Not much else to do but hire out my sword. The Diamond Queen was rich enough to pay, so I took it. Got a lot of cuts and scrapes working for her, but this was the worst of ’em.” I gestured to my blind eye.
“Norvor,” she echoed. “The people who brought me here talked about Norvor, thought I might have come from there. I told them I was sure Akyre was my home. Don’t know why, though.”
“You’ll remember one day,” I told her. “If you want to.”
“Of course I want to! It’s all in my head, waiting for me to discover it. Maybe it’ll come to me in a dream someday.”
“Or maybe a chicken will tell you where you came from.”
We laughed, which was good because neither of us liked the way the conversation had gone. The sun was warm and the sky was crystal clear, and all of a sudden I just started talking.
“Gilwyn thinks I should go away,” I told her. “He says Jador doesn’t really need me right now. Says it’s time for me to find out about myself, just like you.”
Cricket’s round face tightened. “Huh?”
“I’m thinking he’s right. I’ve been restless here. That’s the itch. I need to see what’s out there for me, maybe do some good in the world. Like a knight-errant. Try to find my mission.”
“You’ve got a mission, Lukien. You’re Shalafein!”
“Yeah, well, I’ll still be Shalafein. I’ll just be doing it somewhere else. Don’t you know how a knight-errant works? He rides a
round helping people. I’d be doing that in the name of Jador.”
Cricket looked puzzled. “Sounds like being a mercenary to me. You’re the Bronze Knight, Lukien. Why do you need to go around proving yourself all the time? Why can’t you just stay here?”
“Because I’m going mad here, Cricket.” I slowed down, letting the Jadori get further ahead. “You remember when you told me how you like to keep doing things, how sometimes you can’t control yourself because the stuff in your head drives you crazy, because you’re trying to remember so hard that you can’t stop your mind from buzzing? That’s what it’s like for me. You need to remember things . . . but I need to forget.”
Cricket lifted her chin. “You mean Cassandra.”
“Yeah. Cassandra.” I touched my sword, thinking its power would make me feel better. “Maybe we’re the same, you and me. Always looking for trouble. Sometimes I have to fight just to feel something besides sorry for myself.” I looked at her. “You understand. I know you do.”
Cricket nodded. “I do. Just thinking about myself, I guess. With Minikin gone, and now you . . . What’ll happen to me, Lukien?”
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” I said. It was all I could think to say, the kind of thing no one ever wants to hear. “If it wasn’t safe here I wouldn’t be going.”
“But what’ll I do? I don’t even know who I am. And Gilwyn’s always too busy for me. He’ll just shovel me under with chores.”
She looked genuinely scared. Not about the chores, which was nonsense, but about being alone. And that’s when I had my idea. At first I just smiled as it came over me, then I chuckled. Cricket grimaced.
“It’s not funny.” Her face got gloomy. “I don’t want to stay here without you.”
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, “a knight should have a squire. What about that?”
“A squire?”
“Someone to look after my armor, my horse. You think you could do those things?”
“Me?” She looked as startled as I was by my idea. “But what about your mission?”
“You could be my mission, Cricket. You want to find out about yourself? So do I. We can go to Akyre together, try to find something to knock loose your memories.”
“Akyre.” Cricket’s gloominess returned even darker. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Before I could answer, Malator screamed in my ear, Yes!
I patted my sword to show them both I wasn’t afraid. “There’s no safer place than at my side. I’ll have a squire, and you’ll have your own bodyguard—one that can’t get himself killed.”
That’s idiotic. You can be killed! You’re not immortal!
I said to Cricket, “Gilwyn’ll try to talk us out of it, but I’ll make him understand. It was his idea in the first place. Why should he begrudge me some friendly company?”
Because she’s just a kid!
Cricket thought about it, then gave me her little grin. “I want to do it,” she said. “It’s like I’m out there, wandering around somewhere. I want to go find myself.”
“It’s a long way,” I warned. “Hard travel.”
“I know it; I already did it once. I can make it,” she promised.
“Good,” I declared, pleased with her passion. For the first time in months I felt happy.
We rode on, Malator chattering at me the whole while. Out of spite I ignored him. Malator didn’t control me, I told myself. Let him rant and rave. I was a man, not a boy. I’d go wherever I damn well pleased.
When I get an itch, I scratch till it’s bloody.
4
I was right about Gilwyn not being happy, and I was right about him not trying to stop us. I had my arguments prepared and the determination to make them stick, and in the end he relented. Cricket couldn’t stay in Jador forever. She wasn’t an Inhuman either, so living in Grimhold was out of the question. She was, Gilwyn admitted, a mystery to everyone. It made sense that she should try to discover who she really was.
We didn’t leave Jador quickly, though. I had affairs to get in order and friends to say good-bye to, and crossing the Desert of Tears took planning. We needed water, mostly, and mules to carry it. Food would be a problem, too. I had made the passage several times and had a good map that I’d drawn of the resting spots along the way. I knew every hidden oasis, every cave, every stand of fruit trees. If we found a rass I would kill it, I promised Cricket, and make her a necklace of its teeth. I was excited about leaving but also swore to Gilwyn and White-Eye that I’d return before their baby was born. I figured that gave me at least six months.
Eventually, everyone got used to the idea of us leaving, except for Malator. For days he brooded, not even bothering to talk to me. I refused to care. He’d played that game before with me, and in truth I liked the quiet. Having an Akari constantly in your mind can drive you crazy, so I didn’t bother calling to him either, not even the night before our journey.
It was one of Jador’s perfect nights, totally cloudless, where every star demanded to be counted. I was outside the paddock with my horse, standing in the cut grass strewn over the dirt, enjoying the night air while I brushed the burrs and sand from his coat. Inside the stable the other animals were resting. Not the kreels, though. Kreels are always kept far from horses, and need to be trained not to attack them. I’ve seen kreels rip the bellies out of horses. Zephyr—my horse—was used to kreels, though, as was Cricket’s pony. I’d already brushed the pony for the trip, but I took my time with Zephyr.
“First we’ll get your coat all shined up, then we’ll dig that slop out of your hooves. How’s that sound, boy?”
Zephyr loved the dandy brush. His gray eyelids drooped with relaxation as I ran it down his side. He’d been a gift from King Baralosus of Ganjor, a kind of peace offering after the war. I didn’t much like Baralosus but didn’t mind having such a fine horse, either. I babied Zephyr whenever we were at home in the palace, because out in the desert I demanded so much of him.
“It’s going to be a long one this time, Zephyr,” I warned. “We won’t be back here for months. No telling what we’ll find in the Bitter Kingdoms. Don’t be scared, though. Don’t be scared . . .”
Zephyr nodded his big head as I spoke. I swear that horse could understand me. I stepped back to look him over, startled by a ghostly figure crouching just outside the paddock’s gate. I stared for a moment, shocked to realize it was Malator. He had his back turned to me, kneeling as he drew in the sand with his finger. Stupidly I looked down at my sword. It was still there, of course, but Malator had left the magic weapon.
“Hey,” I called. We were alone, and no one else could see him anyway. He ignored me, not even lifting his head, absorbed in what he was doing. “Malator?”
“Come look at this, Lukien,” he said. I put down my brush and left the paddock, going to stand over his shoulder. He had drawn what looked vaguely like a dragon in the sand.
“Nice,” I commented. “So you’re talking to me again?”
“Look at the dragon, Lukien,” he told me, then passed his ghostly hand over it. The moonlight went through his fingers, striking the image and bringing it to life. The drawing twitched, the mouth and wings suddenly moved. It was a grotesque looking thing, changing quickly as I watched it, sometimes barely resembling a dragon at all. The trick made me smile.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Malator. He leaned over to study it, the moonlight passing through his body. “Something I’ve been seeing lately in my mind.”
Now I was really interested. “What? Like the future?” Minikin had been able to glimpse the future and so could some Akari. But then I said, “There’s no such things as dragons.”
“The dragon could be anything,” said Malator. “A symbol maybe.”
“A symbol for what?”
Malator shook his head and would not answer. He watched the drawing change from a jumbled mass, then to something that looked like bones, and then at last bac
k to a dragon. His unease made me nervous.
“What’s it telling you?” I asked.
Slowly he reached out and wiped the thing away.
“Come on, Malator,” I said. “What was that? What’d you see?”
Malator stood up to face me. Though he’d been kneeling, not a single grain of sand clung to him. “We need to talk about Cricket,” he said, “and the stupid decision you’ve made.”
“Now?” I turned back toward the paddock. “It’s too late. We’re leaving in the morning.”
“You need to listen to me, Lukien. Cricket can’t go with you.”
“Why?” I looked at him again. “What aren’t you telling me, Malator?” I gestured toward the sand where he’d made his picture. “Did you see something about Cricket?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“No. And if you did, would you tell me?”
“You’re letting her come between us, Lukien.” His face was earnest, even sincere. “You’re special. But I can’t teach you what you need to know if you’re distracted.”
“Special,” I scoffed. “Are you ever going to tell me what that means?”
“You’ll know in time,” said Malator. “But not if you take the girl with you.”
None of it made sense to me. I was sick of trying to figure out his riddles. “I’m going, Malator. And Cricket’s going with me.” I returned to Zephyr, picked up my brush, and continued grooming. Malator floated up behind me.
“Go to Akyre, Lukien,” he said. “It’s important that you do. But go alone.”
“Nope.”
Malator growled, “Stop blaming me for keeping you alive! You chose to stay alive, Lukien. You made the promise to Gilwyn and White-Eye. Cassandra’s dead. Cricket can’t replace her.”
I lowered the brush but didn’t turn to face him. “No one can replace her,” I said. “Why would you ever begrudge me something as simple as a friend?”