Trinian

by Elizabeth Russell

  She ran when she saw the beast – but not for cover.

  She ran toward him.

  “You want a victim?” she screamed, staring up into its empty, animalistic eyes. “Then take me. Take me back to whatever hellhole you call your home and feast. Feast! Here I am – take me! Send me to death, to hell, to misery, I don’t care!” She laughed hysterically. “What good is my life? What good is anyone’s life?” Her shouting stilled the beast, and he gazed at her in bewilderment. He was accustomed to a chase, but she was not running. He tilted his head, contemplated her for a brief second…

  And reached down, took her up, and walked away.

  “No!” cried Viol, trying to run after them, but Asbult grabbed her.

  “Let them go. He’s left us alone.”

  “He has my sister.”

  “Yes. But not the prince, not the queen, not all of us. That in itself is a miracle.”

  Garrity sheathed his spear to his back.

  “Garrity, he has Laven!” cried Viol, throwing herself upon him. The young princess’s eyes were filling with tears, and the warrior laid his hand on her shoulder. He could not have cared less for the lost, selfish, self-destructive princess, but he cared much for this one. “I will deal with him, and bring her back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Asbult, but Garrity told him to stay with the others, who were now coming out from under the cover of the cliff where they had huddled in fright.

  “He will kill you if you go alone. And you are still wounded.”

  “If I succeed at all, it will be alone. There is none else to lead them if I do not return.”

  Asbult reluctantly let him go, shaking his head at losing his best and last warrior over a princess who had thrown herself into the arms of death. Let her go, if that was what she wanted. No, he stilled the thought. He still loved her – his stubborn, willful sister – and that was why he was so angry.

  May the gods protect them both.

  * * *

  Lavendier found herself still uneaten in the cave of the beast. He sat towering above her head, watching her with infuriating calm, and she railed against him. She screamed and ran away, but he did not follow; she wept and threw herself upon the ground in abject fear, but he sat watching her; she clawed at her hair and clothing in hysterics, but he merely waited to see what she would do next.

  His giant horns were green and curved, spiraling outward, but he did not spear her on them; his long glistening purple claws and teeth, though sharp, sat idle; and his one giant arm, in the center of his chest, dotted with yellow spots and matted fur, lay useless by his loins, where the black fur, that everywhere else covered his body in patches, was absent, and his hideous white skin glowed pale; even his giant, curving tail that spewed black and red gunk did not wrap around her and smother her with its stench.

  After lying still upon the ground, she finally got up in anger and cried up the many leagues to his head. “Why don’t you eat me? Why don’t you snap my little body in two? Trample me beneath your giant feet! Breathe upon me your poisonous breath! I come to you a willing victim, and what do you do? You sit! Idle!”

  He only curled his swollen black lips in a hideous grin – this was more sport than a fleeing village. He garbled at her, but she did not know his simple grunting language. Then he stood and ambled to a corner, where he kept a few snacks between meals. He pulled out a body, purple from internal bleeding, dead from broken bones, and bit off its head. Then, finally, Lavendier felt like fainting. She swayed a bit and turned pale.

  “I am glad to see you still possess some sort of human emotion.”

  She whirled to see Garrity leaning on his spear in the shadows of the cave’s entrance. “I heard your rant,” he observed. “Apparently you don’t want to be rescued.” He spoke without shouting, and since the beast’s head was so far above them, it did not hear.

  “You should not have come,” she told him. “He will kill you.” She did not care if this soldier died. They all died it seemed, sooner or later – all except her. But she thought she should warn him, in case he did not want his life to end.

  “He will kill you,” he returned, “when he’s had his fun.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why do you want that?”

  Her dark, luscious eyes, deceitfully perfect, widened in agony, and she clutched at her hair. “Because my life is empty.” Her chest heaved as she tried to find the right words. “I may be a princess in a beast’s cave, but this is nothing to the cage into which I have stuffed my soul. I put it there a long time ago because I couldn’t master it. I tried and failed, and I can’t face it now. Now that I know what it is to have one, I can’t go back. Without a soul, I’m empty, gutted, I’m raw. All I want is my life to end. And death refuses to take me!” She screamed this last part up to the monster, and now it turned its attention back to her…

  And decided she was no longer interesting. It reached down with its one giant claw to end her.

  Garrity sighed, for this was a natural god and could only be killed by one of its own kind. Knowing this, and knowing the risk he took in revealing himself to the princess, Garrity nonetheless lifted his spear and hurled it at the beast. The heavy weapon pierced the hairy hand and the monster let forth a bellow of pain and outrage, snarling about the cave to find where it had sailed from. This, though it made her angry, did not astonish Lavendier – but what he did next left her utterly speechless.

  Garrity threw off his cloak, charged to meet the monster, and when he was only ten paces from being trampled flat like a beetle under a shoe, he leapt high into the air. He flew straight to the roof of the cave, a quarter of a mile above the ground, and latched hold there like a bat. Then, bracing his feet on the wall of the cave, with his bare hands, he pulled down the ceiling, burying the beast beneath a crushing load of rubble. Garrity leapt clear of the falling rocks, landing lightly like a lyrebird, and dusting his hands.

  He did not even breathe heavily.

  Lavendier trembled and shook for the both of them. The rubble had barely missed her, and she was kneeling among it, but her gaze was fixated in terror on her savior. “What are you? Are you a god?”

  He recloaked himself. “I am a man.”

  “No!” she cried wildly, fear, desperation, and exhaustion blending horribly within her. “I know what I just saw and it wasn’t human. Don’t lie to me.”

  He looked at her with calm and mild scorn, as he always did. “I never lie.” He walked to where the beast’s hand stuck out from beneath the stones and pulled his spear free. “Never suggest that again.”

  Weak-kneed, she collapsed against the cavern wall. “Then what did I see?”

  For the first time since meeting the spoiled princess, Garrity felt a semblance of pity for her. She looked miserable, subdued and humbled – an attitude only Merciec had seen in her before. But this time, it was less from fear and more from respect, which heightened the humanity of it.

  He cleaned and sheathed his sword, and sat down heavily across from her. He winced, now, at the pain in his chest. “I have tried to forget.”

  “Then you aren’t human?”

  “Partly. My mother was a witch, a powerful enchantress, the natural goddess of the hills of southern Kelta. I carry her blood in my veins, and when I choose, I can call upon it. Sometimes for strength, sometimes to cast a spell. I have done it little in my life.”

  Lavendier’s eyes did not waver from his face. He looked at her, wanting to stop, but she gave him no excuse, for there was nothing of her old pride looking back at him; only respect and subdued inquiry. “I fear power, and I respect it,” he continued quickly. “But she did neither. She taught me, by lesson and example, to wield my strength for evil. My father was a coward, and died when I was still a child. I grew up knowing nothing of goodness or morality. I had to teach it to myself.” He glared at her. He was angry that she had gotten him to talk about himself, but she only looked back at him with the round brown eyes of an eager child.

  She was hungry for him t
o continue, and pressed him. “Why? Why teach yourself that?”

  “Because I hated evil. Somehow, I could see the ugliness in it, and I fled as far away as possible.”

  “Then you are more than human.”

  He was annoyed. “I am half human, half god. The blood that flows in my veins is half mortal, half immortal. I am a perilous danger to myself! I could easily wield terrible power over others.”

  She was silent a moment, reflecting on all she knew about the soldier before her, remembering every moment, battle, and speech. “Yet you do not use it,” she said. “You could never be a danger to anyone. You do not even engage in small sins.” She leaned forward, trying to meet the real man for once. “You are the best man I know,” and she surprised herself with her earnestness. Embarrassed, she pulled back and observed softly, “You saved me when I would not save myself. Such power is not to be feared. You are brave and good, and self-sacrificing.”

  He sighed again, weary with the conversation and with her compliments. “You no longer wish to die?”

  “If you can overcome,” she said stumblingly, “on your own – such evil within you – such a terrible past – then I can try harder. I think – I can try also to be good.”

  “We all need help, you know,” he said kindly. “I did not learn to be good on my own. I had help.”

  She nodded, pursing her lips.

  Then he stood, lifted her from the ground, and they returned to the others.

  61

  Lavendier Questions

  To Asbult’s astonishment, the rocky land had ended in another forest. He had expected it to empty straight into the enemy’s domain, but it seemed that even this close to his deadly realm, there struggled up some life in the soil. So now they traveled in shade and slept on soft ground, which was a welcome respite from the rocks. All the while, as they wove in and out among the trees, Lavendier pondered Garrity’s broad back as he forged ahead at the front of the caravan. He seemed to be a new person, and whenever she thought about the mighty leap, the flight to the roof of the cavern, and the toppling of the solid rock, she trembled with excitement. He had an outer calm that belied the intensity of passion and power within. She wanted to understand him, and like everything else in her life, when she wanted something, she tenaciously pursued it.

  On the evening of the second day since her attempted suicide, the demi-god was standing apart from their group beneath an elm, where Cila’s voice drifted through the darkness from the light of the fire, singing Jacquee to sleep,

  “Come my little one

  Come

  And feel the light of dawn

  A sprinkle of rain

  A trickle to stain

  Dark the little hand

  That stretches for water.

  But dawn will come again.

  Come my little one

  Come

  And feel the light of dawn.”

  Someone approached Garrity with a loud crackling of twigs, and he whirled upon them, nearly taking off Lavendier’s head with his blade.

  “It’s only me,” she cried.

  “Did you need something?” he asked testily, turning back around with a sigh and wishing she would leave him alone.

  “No,” she said, “Nothing.” Then, to his astonishment, she sat on the ground beside him, her shoulder so close, he could practically feel its warmth on his leg. He tried to make himself comfortable again, but her presence disconcerted him.

  “Not much a one for talking, are you?” she asked after a little while.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He kept his voice even, wishing she would take the hint and go away. “There is very seldom anything worth saying.”

  She laughed, and he frowned at her. What he had said was not funny.

  “If we waited for that, the human race would soon forget the faculty of speech!” she said.

  He thought about that, and did not agree, so he merely said, “Hmm.”

  “Of course!” continued the princess, taking his silence as encouragement. “Besides, language itself is ridiculous, so why bother making the content worthwhile? We talk because we want to feel close to others, not because we really have anything to say.”

  “When people have a true connection, they can communicate without words.”

  “Well, I can’t!” she exclaimed in surprise. “How can I know what someone is thinking unless they tell me?”

  “But is that really what we convey when we speak – what we are thinking? I often find it’s the opposite. I think actions convey thoughts more effectively.”

  “Huh,” she wrinkled her white brow. “Why do you have to make everything so complicated?”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes! I’m just trying to get to know you.”

  He smiled at that, and then laughed so suddenly that she jumped, her shoulder hitting his knee. “I’m not very good at that,” he told her.

  “Talking?”

  “Getting to know people. I don’t have very many friends, nor do I wish to. I have difficulty trusting others.”

  “Me, you mean?” her voice was small and insecure. “Because of how I’ve acted up till now?”

  “No, anyone. It is the way I am.”

  “You don’t have to trust me, you know. I mean, not tonight. But maybe we could get to know each other, and then you decide?”

  He was taken aback that for the second time he was seeing this girl apart from her selfish, self-centered, arrogant ways. She was vulnerable, curious, and conducting her tenacity in a positive direction, and he unexpectedly wanted to give her a chance. “I think I like that plan,” he said.

  * * *

  Lavendier walked beside her new friend at the head of the group, and frequently, Viol ran ahead of the others and walked on the other side of Garrity. Her smaller legs fell into step with his long strides, and she swung her arms in an indifferent effortlessness.

  It struck Lavendier, as she watched her little sister over the course of the next few days, that when she herself walked or moved, she was forever conscientious about how she presented herself: where she laid her arms when they were at rest, how her head was held upon her neck, what expression she used to mask her face. She thought, with surprise, that these were probably not the manners of an unselfish person. Filled with the eager resolve of new-found goodness, she decided, then and there, to strive to be selfless about her appearance, and not to care so much about her poise and movement.

  “Who helped you to be good?” she asked Garrity suddenly, as the three of them were walking together.

  “What?”

  “In the cave, you said someone helped you learn to be good. Who was it?”

  Garrity glanced uncomfortably at Viol, wishing Lavendier were more discreet, and shrugged his shoulders. “Just this man who took me in after I left home.”

  “After you ran away?”

  “Yes,” he said tightly.

  “How did he help you?”

  “He taught me to mind my tongue,” he said, and to his relief, Lavendier fell silent.

  Lavendier, embarrassed, dropped back from them to adjust the pack on her shoulders. The long grasses in the shade were still wet with morning dew and clung to her damp skirt, but she was used to it now. Life lived in comfort, on feather beds with warm fires, a roof over one’s head and a cushiony chair reached far back in her memory, only offering a pale once-upon-a-time in contrast to the drudgery of life now, and she no longer dwelt on those images in bitterness. Sore back, aching legs, and sunburned neck were the norm, and she did not complain.

  Resolved to show Garrity that she could learn from him, she forged on again, and Viol fell back until she walked alongside her. Lavendier felt a warm glow in her heart for, obsessed as she was with gaining Garrity’s good opinion, she wanted this best friend of Garrity’s, her own strange little sister, to be her friend too.

  Many new thoughts had been tormenting Lavendier for some time, not the least of these being about love, and now she
decided to broach the subject with her sister, in a selfless attempt to show that she was growing in virtue.

  “I do not think that loving others means you love yourself any less,” she said. “I think we learn to love ourselves more, the more we love others.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Viol, surprised. “I think loving others means that you forget about yourself.”

  Lavendier furrowed her brow. “That’s not true. You have to love yourself before you can think about loving others. Otherwise, why would you love? We do it selfishly at first, thinking only of ourselves, and it’s only after the person becomes a part of us that we care about their well-being.”

  “Maybe. I know not. I never thought about it before.”

  Lavendier frowned in dissatisfaction that the conversation had ebbed, and she suddenly burst out, “Why is it so hard to talk to people?”

  Viol laughed in surprise. “Since when have you had trouble talking to people?”

  “Since I actually cared what we were talking about. I cannot seem to get Garrity to talk to me about anything interesting.”

  “Laven, I do not know if I should say this, but…”

  “What?”

  “Well, you’ve been by his side a lot the past few days. Maybe he finds it smothering.”

  “Really? Oh. Do you think I am smothering?”

  “N-no. I don’t.”

  Lavendier pouted. “That was enthusiastic.”

  “I find you needy,” she explained guiltily.

  “Oh.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just, well, you have been trying so hard to help everyone and do everything the past few days, and it is kind of tiring.”

  Lavendier flushed. “I am just trying to be a better person,” she exclaimed.

  “That’s good. Really, it is. I’m glad.”

  “Don’t you notice?”

  “I guess so. I guess I was looking at it the wrong way.”

  The older girl wanted to add more and explain everything to make Viol understand, to make her see how hard being good was, but then she bit her tongue. She could not help thinking of Merciec, who had said she was not as good as she thought she was. Looking for approval, she decided, was probably not the right way to be good. Instead, she picked up her pace until she was alongside Garrity again.