by Billy Wong
Brian introduced them. "Rose, our leader Ethan. Ethan, Rose. She saved me on the road, from a crazed merchant out for my blood."
Ethan's smile abruptly faded, and before Rose could ask what was wrong, he said, "The Rose?"
"You know her?"
"She's the one who killed Count Lennox and his personal army in Nienne," he said in a sad voice. "The Monster of the Black Mane."
Self-consciously rubbing at her hair, Rose frowned. "Monster? That's a bit rough."
"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to offend you. You've got quite the reputation, though, and it's not an attractive one in my eyes. Is it true?"
She wondered why his tone was so concerned, when he did not even know her. "They were evil men."
"It is true. You have so much blood on your hands, and at such a young age..."
Yeah. She kind of got that already. "What's your point? It's not like I'm proud of killing them. But I'm not ashamed, either. I stand by my choices, and if they were bad..." She stopped. If they had been bad, there was nothing she could do. But that didn't mean she never felt guilty over them.
Ethan put a hand on her shoulder. "Such violence does your soul no good."
"Is this what you say to all mass murderers you meet?" she asked wearily. Didn't he get it? She knew all this already! It wasn't something that needed saying, and could only make her feel all the worse about her already questionable life.
"Yes. Whatever you've done in the past, you can change; and we can help you."
Rose frowned. Abhorrent as her deeds must be from a pacifist viewpoint, it surprised her Ethan would treat her so hopefully. "Really? What do you see in me that makes you think so?"
"I try to give everyone a chance." Not particularly encouraging... "But you more so. By coming here, you've already shown you're open to a change."
"I came here because Brian brought me. And I like a lot of the things you said, and admire the good things you do. But some of it's just... unrealistic."
His gaze bored into her eyes, forcefully though without anger. "You don't think the world would be a better place without strife?"
"I think people wouldn't give up strife."
"Things start slowly, one person at a time."
"It's not starting with me."
Ethan looked at her as if confused, and she decided that for all his earlier poise and confidence, he was indeed less of an adult than herself. He hadn't seen or experienced the things she had, and didn't understand the world he lived in as she did. Yet she was moved by his idealism; she almost wished she could see things his way.
"Why did you come here?" he asked unhappily.
"I was curious."
"Then I hope you'll indulge it. You'll surely find it worthwhile."
He walked away to find conversation somewhere else, and Rose turned to Brian. "That was awkward."
"He sees something in you. I could tell from his eyes."
She thought she had seen hope in them, but had there been something else too? "He's too pushy."
"I think he was too eager, that's all. He wants to see you turn out well, and so do I. I don't see any evil in you—just misguided drive."
She wasn't sure what would have been worse. Misguided? Just because she was a warrior? Too judgmental! Then again, she did kill people... "And you'd have me give up fighting, right?"
"That's obvious."
"I'd like to give it a chance," she decided at last. She supposed she could promise whatever it was these people promised and give it a try. Ethan's notion of morality didn't seem entirely realistic, but appealed greatly to her on a conceptual level—and the man himself intrigued her, like her an achiever at an early age, yet in such different manner.
And she realized now that she too wished, perhaps even more than him, she would not to have fight again. She may have been more aware of the harsh truths of the world, but their ideals were the same. Neither could she deny a physical attraction to him, though that in itself was not so strong as to move her to action if not for her fascination with his moral qualities. He should have been too small, smaller than her, but his mental strength made up for any physical lack he had.
Nevertheless, Rose felt a bit guilty as she found herself saying the last words of the Whitestone oath, knowing in her heart that she would likely wind up breaking it someday. For now, at least, she wasn't expecting to get into too many fights here in the city. But danger never seemed far from her, and if somebody did try to kill her or someone else she didn't want to see die, she would do whatever it took to stop them. Promises were nice, but life was always more important by far.
Though she thought her convictions justified, guilt still nagged at the back of her mind. There was no clause that said a Whitestone sworn was one for life, but a breaking of the vows removed one from the group for a currently unspecified amount of time, and Rose knew leaving wasn't an option most members kept in mind. Most, she understood, were dedicated to being Whitestones for life, and would never risk expulsion from the group. As such, Rose imagined herself a fraud in the company of these would-be saints.
"I'm glad you gave us a chance," Ethan said after her induction into the group. "It'll be good for you, to atone for your past sins in the aid of others."
"I agree with that. I'll be glad to help."
They worked together to promote the welfare of Dunwal's neediest residents, delivering food and clothing to its poor, teaching children with nowhere else to learn, and helping to keep track of and report crimes in the more dangerous parts of town. Once, Rose thought about what would happen when the constables found the criminals they ratted out, and wondered if it could be considered hypocrisy on the Whitestones' part if the authorities harmed their prisoners in whatever way. Then again, maybe they were naive enough to pretend no such thing ever happened.
Having just fed the last visitor of the day to their children's soup kitchen, a limping old woman they just couldn't bear to turn away, Rose looked at Ethan and asked, "So did you found the Whitestones? You seem so young, to be where you are."
His voice took on a sad air. "No, I didn't create this organization. My father did; he's dead now."
"How did it happen?"
"He was playing with a neglected young girl who he'd befriended in downtown Dunwal when her drunken father showed up, enraged by his mistaken assumption about my father's intentions. So he attacked him with a cudgel, and cracked his skull. He died the next day."
Rose's eyes misted at the heartbreak in his voice, but she didn't stop herself from asking, "Did he try to fight back?"
"I don't think so. At least, the man who killed him said he didn't. He never broke his oath, not even to save his life."
"You talked to his killer? That must have been hard."
Ethan nodded. "It was, at first. But he's turned his life around and become a friend to me since that day, and though I'll never truly forgive him for killing my father, I'll always try. He deserves that much."
Rose was amazed by his propensity for forgiveness. "I can't believe you'd be able to make friends with him. I'd kill him."
"Still?"
She didn't answer, but was sure he knew what her answer would be. How could she possibly have forgiven her father's murder, if it had been her? How could he?
"You know him, too," he added softly. "It's Brian."
"Brian killed your father?!"
"I know it seems impossible, seeing the man he is now. But he even used to sick that beast of his on intruders and let it rip them to shreds. He's definitely changed, and his dog with him. Apparently, they can learn new tricks."
Rose was even more impressed, and in her mind Ethan went from an aspiring saint to a real one. How could such a person exist? She knew good people, and counted herself as one in spite of all her faults and doubts, but compared to him, she was like a star next to the sun. Maybe his ideals weren't impossible after all, if people like him could walk the earth.
"You're amazing, you know that? I wish I could be as good."
"Yo
u're trying," he said soothingly, "and I wouldn't ask for anything more."
Suddenly feeling wretched as she recalled all the violence of her life, she breathed, "I'm worse than Brian, you know. I've taken a lot more life. It won't be so easy, for you to save me."
"But you can save yourself, and you are."
"Have you ever met anyone you believed couldn't be saved?"
"No."
"Never?"
"Never ever."
"You really are that good. I'll try to live up to your faith."
"I won't begrudge you if you fail. It makes me happy just to see you try."
Rose giggled, feeling wonderfully comfortable, free, around this peerless man. It was as if the force of his idealism formed an invisible barrier which extended to her, shielding her from the cruelties of the world. "Won't your saying so just tempt me to slack off?"
"No, because you want to improve, for yourself."
"Yes, I do. So... why is it that your order's so against violence, anyway? I mean, even if it's a fight for a good cause?"
"Because we have to remain pure, Rose. Even fighting for a good cause taints you with their wrongful methods, and we won't have that. And it's my hope that our pureness will inspire others to seek the same."
"Thanks for everything, Ethan—you're the best. I'll try as I can not to let you down."
Rose lived and worked happily with the Whitestones, and after a while began to think maybe she could enjoy a nonviolent rest of her life. It gave her a great deal of pleasure to be able to help people without having to harm others in turn, and the thought of battle grew farther away.
One day after watching Ethan take half an hour to sooth a child with a burnt tongue whose refusal to stop crying would surely have aggravated her, her admiration rose to new heights. After the boy left and they were alone, the blood pounded in her neck as an impulsive question escaped her lips. "Do you... are you celibate?"
He smiled. "Hell no! Why?"
"I like you a lot. I think I might be in love."
Only for a moment did he seem surprised. "No wonder you keep staring. When did you realize it?"
"Since you told me about your father and Brian. I've never heard a better testament to the goodness we can find in ourselves—not in real life."
Looking happily into her eyes, he said, "I like you too. You're a remarkable girl."
"Not as much as you."
"Depends on how you're defining the term."
She looked down. "Are you sure you're not following along because you feel sorry for me? Because I'm your... charity case?"
"Gods, Rose. You're nobody's charity case. You must be one of the best fighters in the kingdom, and you're only sixteen years old!"
"That's not what I meant. I meant... spiritually. You must find me so corrupt, spiritually. Why would you give me a chance, open your heart to me? You must be afraid I'd break it."
"You're not corrupt; you've tried too hard to be considered that. You were misguided, and now you know the path of peace. Of course I'd give you a chance."
She supposed he was right. He gave everybody a chance. And even if he was too good for her, she'd try her best not to let that be the case. He was a good-looking boy, but that didn't matter at all now. It was the perfection of his soul that made him the flame to her short-sighted moth. She almost knew this could only end in disaster and she didn't care. She wanted to bask in his sublime goodness, to share in his limitless caring and kindness. Perhaps it really was time for her life of battle to come to an end. She hugged him.
"I love you so much, Ethan. I won't let you down."
He kissed her on the lips, not the kiss of a saint but of the gentlest earthly man. "I think I love you, too. I really do think so."
They went to his room where Rose found her new, first love to be every bit as inexperienced in sexual matters as she, and the two struggled happily to express their love in the shelter of his bed. Okay, so maybe he wasn't the usual saint. But he was definitely a great man, and seemingly her better half. She felt totally inadequate as a person next to him, and it didn't matter. No, it did. It made her want to be just as good as him, and all the better for it.
#
"What's that?" Ethan asked as he caught her reading an old text before a clothing drive.
"It's Mages and Mystics. It's about famous magic users of the Old World. Here, take a look."
"Wow, they sure had great names. Darkevon, Doomar, Deathend... what mother would name their kid that?"
She laughed. "They must have been trying to scare their enemies. They made scary things for it, too, with their magic."
"You're scared of that?"
"I've fought their creations a few times, and hell yeah, it's scary. But I won."
"You don't act like a warrior, you know. You're too nice."
Rose shrugged. "I just consider other people's needs, that's all. Besides, I think the warrior me's almost a different person. Not as nice."
"Is that person gone now?"
"She's still in here. I don't think I'll ever lose that part of me completely, and I wouldn't want to. It's part of what makes me strong."
"You're really strong. But you don't always have to be."
"I know—not around here, anyway. I've got you."
She hugged him tenderly, forgetting all her old pains in his embrace. Their moment was interrupted when a disheveled, cheaply dressed woman in her mid-twenties pushed her way into the tower past Brian's attempts to keep her out. "It's not time yet," the big man said, but she ignored him and rushed in front of Rose and Ethan anyway.
"Help me, you have to help me!" she cried. Her eyes were red and overflowing with tears.
"What's wrong?" Rose asked.
"He's taken the children! He beat me, and took my children."
"He who?"
"My husband."
"Why didn't you call the constables, then?"
"I don't want to lose him, I need him. I need him to support our family."
Rose paused, unsure of how to handle this, and Ethan spoke up. "Why did he do it?"
"He said I was a bad mother, that I wasn't teaching them right. But he wasn't teaching them anything—he was never home to try!"
"Where do you think he took them?"
"I don't know. He might have taken them with him to live at a friend's. He has too many bad friends."
"All right, tell me about the ones you think might be hiding them, and we'll do whatever we can." Listening to Ethan, Rose could tell he had experience dealing with this kind of situation. But this sounded like a dangerous man, and she wondered how he would handle things if it came to a fight.
"Thank you," the woman said, and began to tell of places and names.
When she—Linda—was finished, Ethan told Rose, "Let's go. The others can handle things here." Happy for his swift action, she turned to go upstairs to her room. He stopped her. "What are you doing?"
"Getting my sword," she answered without thinking.
"Whitestones don't use swords. We're not supposed to fight, remember?"
Rose frowned. "I know, but couldn't the threat of a sword make it easier to talk someone down?"
"We don't need the threat of physical violence as a tool for negotiation. That's a barbarian's way."
But it was a way that worked... Rose nodded and followed him out the door, glad at least for the dagger hidden in her sleeve.
#
They went to the slum dwellings of several of Phil the husband's friends before finding their first real hope. Outside the thin, shabby door of a peddler named Earl, they heard the cries of several small children inside. Earl didn't have kids, Linda had said. Ethan knocked.
"Who is it?"
"We need to talk to you."
"Go away!"
Ethan knocked again. "Whose kids are those?"
"My friend's! What do you want?"
"Their mother misses them."
"And? Who says their father doesn't have just as much of a right to raise them?"
He had a point, but Phil had also beaten the mother and taken the children away by force. It wasn't, to Rose, the mark of a good father, not to mention never trying to teach them himself. "He ought to talk to her then, instead of taking away the joy of her life!"
Ethan nodded at her words, and Earl replied, "I tried to get him to do that, but he just doesn't want to go back. He's afraid she might have called the constables!"
"She didn't," Ethan said, "she told us. Now, let us in."
Earl sounded scared. "He's not here right now, and I don't want to let you in here with his children without his consent. He might get mad, and I don't what he'll do then."
Bad friends, Linda had said. More like bad husband, in Rose's mind. Earl was scared of Phil, not the other way around. "We can handle him," she said.
Ethan looked at her with questioning eyes, but her words had their desired effect. Earl opened the door, and the two of them stepped inside. It became clear in an instant that the tired-looking little man had no idea of how to raise a child, let alone the three he had been burdened with.
The tiny apartment was a smelly mess, and at the moment two toddlers ran around playing in their young, wild way. Seeing the visitors, they looked at them and then continued their roughhousing. A third child, an older girl of about five, slept on a filthy mattress next to the wall.
"Thank goodness help's arrived," Earl said.
"So what do we do now?" Rose asked.
Ethan turned to Earl. "When do you expect him to get back?"
"Normally, he wouldn't come home until late night, but today's his off day, and he just went out to get something to drink. He should be back within couple of hours, probably."
Wiping what looked to be rotten food off a chair before sitting down with a bemused face, Ethan said, "We wait."
"So what does Phil do, anyway?" Rose asked Earl as she found a relatively clean spot on the floor on which to sit. Linda had said he worked in a tavern, but not specified what he did.
"He's a guard. He's known for breaking people's teeth in at a moment's notice, too. But you look like you can handle yourself in a fight."
Rose swallowed. Sure, there was probably less than a one in a hundred chance this Phil could be a match for her. But she was afraid of it coming to a fight at all. She would be forced to make a tough choice. "He's reasonable, isn't he?" Of course, she doubted he was.