by kubasik
"So we'll hide you."
His stubby fingers folded themselves into fists, then relaxed, then repeated the motion several times over. "But I won't know when I can go home."
"Don't worry about that. We'll go on to Kratas We can stay there, hiding, and I can send word to your father from there."
This eased his concern and he sat back down. Sleepiness overcame him and he began to blink. I got up and eased him down onto the bench. Already his eyes were closed, and his breathing deep. By the time I stood straight he was fast asleep. Inspired by Neden, my body so wanted a heavy sleep. But I stood rooted to the spot, staring down at him. I felt the desire to become his father, to possess him as a father. I wish I could say there was love behind this desire but what was there to love? I'd known him for the half hour of our conversation. No. What had roused in me was the same desire to own the trinkets and jewels and treasures scattered about my house. Something for me to revel in owning, but not to enjoy.
I should mention as well, though I am loath to do it, the other sensation. It was present, strange and formless in the muscles of my arms and hands. The desire to hurt him. I wish I could say otherwise, but it was there. And as always, when these feelings coursed through my thoughts, I sensed the shadow lurking nearby.
Unlike the white shadow that had been the Horror's spirit in my home in the kaer years and years ago, this one was rich in darkness. I never saw it clearly. Never took a sharp look at it, never tried too hard to see it. Did not want to. But I knew it was there. I'd felt it growing since the time I'd gotten my voice back. It had grown stronger and stronger over the years. Now it was in the room with me. With us, Neden and I.
At once I felt shamed by the desire to hurt Neden, but I also believed it to be a true impulse good and strong. The same way I knew what I had done to you and your brother thirty years ago to be good and strong. I had meant what I said then: Our scars make us what we are. I felt that I must hurt Neden for him to grow up and understand what the world was about.
How to hurt him? How much? I didn't know. It didn't seem the right time. I turned from him, leaving him be for now. The shadow retreated. Never fully gone, but out of sight.
The impulse slipping from my mind, I went off to sleep. I climbed the stairs to the bedchamber, the highest room in the house, and shrugged off the exhaustion that had gathered on me for so many hours.
Later in the afternoon I awoke to a sound filtered through a dream—the claws of rats sorting through a pile of refuse. When I opened my eyes, patches of dead yellow sunlight crawled on the walls. A moment of hesitation, listening to the sound, wondering, then a quick, alert sitting up. Where was Neden? Had Mordom somehow found us?
I slipped out of bed, floor cold against bare feet, crept to the door. Down the dark stairway I heard nothing but objects shifted carefully. Someone trying to be quiet. No words spoken.
A dagger waited on the wall by the door, tucked behind a tapestry. They're everywhere. I don't even know if I could find them all for you, I've planted so many in this house. Just in case. I withdrew the dagger from its hiding place. Started down the stairs, silent. Not a creak from the floorboards. Dagger in hand, held for a stab. One flight, then two. Only the sounds of the treasure sifter from the room ahead caught my attention. The stairway and the lower rooms were dark, lit only by lanterns hanging from walls. It seemed likely it would be Neden. Mordom's henchmen seemed more the sort to clumsily scatter everything this way and that, and then claim they could find nothing of value. Still, one can never be too careful, I thought. I have always thought that. I lived like an archer's string. You know, of course, a bowstring should not remain permanently on the bow. It bends the bow. Strains the string. It's astounding how we can so clearly recognize the mistreatment of objects, but be so unaware of what we are doing to ourselves.
I turned the corner into the doorway. The light of a lamp hanging on a hook in the hall threw my shadow forward. Neden turned, gasped, as the shadow appeared large and wavering on the wall before him "J'role," he said, and smiled. He was kneeling before a trunk. Scattered Around him were silver coins and glinting necklaces and jewel encrusted goblets. Part of the haul from Parlainth the day the creature in my thoughts died.
They day my life changed.
The day everything stayed pretty much they same.
The day things got worse.
For a moment, looking at him, I thought he was me, kneeling down before the treasure, back in the treasure room in Parlainth. The elements of my dreams had finally come true.
The monster killed, treasure chests opened. An adventure! My confusion cut deep, shaking my bones. Who was I, if he was me? I became a bodiless spirit without a time or place. It was a common problem of mine. I spent a great deal of time in my head. I often forgot about my flesh. Or rather, it seemed a distraction. If only I could be aware without having to be alive. The sight of Neden kneeling before the treasure I had knelt before decades earlier only exaggerated the problem. My voice left me. What can a ghost say?
Neden stood, concern on his face, distancing himself from the treasure. "I'm sorry. I didn't ... didn't ... I just wanted to ..." He stepped away, starting to shake. He wanted to get away from the treasure, but I blocked the door, and apparently I was not something a child would want to be near. What was the expression I wore on my face? How did I hold my body? I cannot say. Something had slipped. The center gone. My perceptions of self fraying, a sail in the storm. Tense, I would imagine, the muscles firm and locked. My face taut. I don't think it was anger. Anger is comprehensible to a child. I imagine the confusion on my face ran so deep, a great ravine extending down into darkness, that Neden had never seen anything like it. An adult with the lost expression of an infant.
Now that would be disturbing.
"Neden," I said, not looking at him. I had no body, so I had no eyes. How could I look at him?
"Yes?"
"Come here."
Nothing happened. No scrape of footsteps against the wooden floor.
"Please come here."
A hesitant step. Then another. His voice creaked, filled with spiders, I thought. "Yes?"
"Take my hand."
“I...”
A pause. Then the touch of his stubby fingers against mine. They slid up to my palm, and then he gripped my hand. Reality, swift and solid, flowed up through my flesh. His touch anchored me back in place. A place. A time. I was warm once more. I stood, swaying, uncertain. Glad. I held his hand a bit tighter, "Are you all right?" he asked. I nodded. I was. I felt myself coming to me again. I looked down at him. Smiled. He returned the smile, but hesitantly. "I'm all right."
"What happened?”
"I get confused sometimes. Confused—does that ever happen to you?”
"Sometimes. I guess."
"Never mind. I'm all right now." I sensed that he wanted to take his hand away. But I held onto it, selfish. Needed to know he would be uncomfortable for my sake.
9
I had planned to spend a few weeks hiding here, in my home. There seemed little need to risk a journey immediately. Varulus had obviously meant for Neden to be out of sight for some time, and as my home had escaped the attention of soldiers and bounty hunters for a decade, it seemed the perfect place for us to wait out the time before our trip to Kratas.
For three days I showed him my trinkets, hauling them out of lonely storage. He showed little interest in the treasures themselves. Why should he? As the heir to the kingdom of Throal he had wealth aplenty. His scale of wealth and power involved the movement of armies, trade negotiations, the construction of whole cities. I realize now I must have made a ridiculous sight, hauling out my treasures, tossing them before his gaze.
But the stories that accompanied the treasures—Ah! These caught his attention. "Now theses rubies," I'd say, knowing I had him hooked, "I acquired from the lair of a corrupted elf who led a band of thieves against caravans."
His eyes widened like a beggar's hands, fingers spread wide, waiting for more. "You've seen a corrupt
ed elf?"
I knew that the Elf Queen and others from Blood Wood sometimes visited Throal.
"Haven't you?"
"My father never lets me see them." He pouted, a boy knowing he'd been robbed of the birthright of seeing the strange and horrible of this world. "He says they're a bad influence."
I thought of the Elf Queen's thorns raking through my flesh as she embraced me so many years before. "Yes. And no."
He cocked his head, catching on that there was more in my cryptic reply than merely ambiguity. "Have you ever been to Blood Wood?" he asked slyly. I nodded. "Is it terrible? I've heard it's absolutely terrible." He leaned in, little boy energy crackling around him like a magician's spell, eager to hear of things disgusting and repulsive.
"It's pretty bad," I answered. The setting sun cast a rosy light, and my gaze followed the shadows of leaves on the wall. I didn't know if I could begin talking about the matter without breaking into tears.
Softly, a truth dawning on him, he said, "You can tell me about Blood Wood." Then, abruptly, loudly, "You must tell me all about it. Please. My father doesn't tell me anything about the Corrupted Court." As an afterthought he said, to bolster his argument,
"And I'm to be king some day!"
"Your father has his reasons for not speaking to you about it, I’m sure."
"My father wants me to be nice." He spat out the last word as if it reminded him of carrots forced on him at dinner.
I thought of the Elf Queen, of blood. Of you and Torran, faces ruined. Of all the pain I'd caused your mother by my irresponsibility. "Nice has its place in the world."
"Please, please, please, tell me about Blood Wood. I hear they take their skin off at night."
"No. No, they don't do that. Their skin is always on them, and the thorns always prick through their flesh. They can't ever stop the pain. It's always with them." A chill began to crawl along my arms and into my shoulders.
"They did that to save themselves. From the Horrors."
"Yes. They made themselves hurt so much there was no pain left over for the Horrors to feed on. The Horrors went elsewhere."
Neden looked down, putting it all together "But now they still hurt. How come they can't stop?"
"Their magic cost them a great deal." I laughed thinking how much the metaphor of money had crept into my thinking over the years. "And some things, once you purchase them, are yours for life."
"Like a dog?"
"Somewhat."
We sat in silence, our thoughts drifting in different directions, but orbiting the same ideas, like stars floating around the earth. He said, "So you don't want to talk about Blood Wood?"
"No."
"Pretty bad, huh?"
"Oh, yes."
"I guess that's why my father doesn't want me to know about it."
"He also hates them.” Neden raised an eyebrow. "They represent everything he is fighting against. They sold themselves to corruption to save their own lives. Your father thinks people should rather die than become monsters." My voice betrayed a bitterness.
"You don't think Father's wrong, do you?"
I smiled, laughed, a ridiculous attempt to throw the boy off track. "No. No, not at all. Of course not."
With the cautious eyes of a pup who had yet to learn what was good behavior and what bad, he stared at me. "You think people should become monsters to survive."
"I'm saying it happens. We do what we must."
Fear turned his face into a mask. Then, cleverly, he relaxed. "Can I go outside to play?"
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"Mmmm."
The splintering of the front door rushed up the stairs, making us jump. We looked at each other, startled, waiting for an explanation.
"Hurry!" someone shouted.
"Are we in trouble?" Neden asked.
"Oh, yes." I answered.
10
With the thrill of possible death tickling me forward, I rushed towards the door. Neden slipped further into the room, willing to let me protect him once again. I grabbed a sword from a wall. With thoughts of the Elf Queen in my mind, I realized that all of my weapons served me as thorns of the mind, walls of sharp metal, pricking me constantly with thoughts of the world's pain, never permitting me tog let down my guard.
But who was it attacking? Mordom and his henchmen? Bounty hunters finally come for me? Or perhaps even soldiers from Throal, come to rescue Neden after somehow tracking him to my home. The sounds of swords being drawn greeted me as I made my way down the last flight of curved stairs to the main floor. A faint shadow on the wall, a creak of the stairs. They wanted to be quiet, but silence was my friend, and he spoke to me of all the noises that intruded on him. I dove for the wall opposite the mercenary, sailing for a moment through the air with ridiculous ease—a dream made flesh—and smacked my back into it. My abrupt arrival caught the mercenary off guard. A young man, dressed in black armor, he wore a determined scowl, which he must have hoped would accentuate the nihilistic armor. The look changed to horrified surprise as I swung my sword into his stomach. He cried out, fell back down the stairs. His companions, a motley lot of young mercenaries like himself, as well as the dwarf I'd seen with Mordom, caught his body.
I rushed back up the stairs as they tried to push their way past the corpse. "Neden!" I cried, "Time to move on!" When I reached the room I discovered him— gone. A cursory search behind treasure trunks and a few large sacks of gold and silver coins revealed nothing. I called his name again, then ran from room to room, the panic of the moment sending a thrilling heat through my flesh. It occurred to me I might have lost my mind.
Had the boy really been in my home? Where, exactly, had the shift in my sanity taken place? Had I fantasized my mother placing the creature in my head, her fingertips touching my chest as the creature's ritual required? Or perhaps it was the arrival of Garlthik in my village? Or even my father's death? Did he still live somewhere? Then all the thoughts tumbled and collapsed at once, hundreds of pearls cascading down a flight of stairs—clickity clack, clickity clack. Was I really me? Where did the knowledge of who I was, how I was supposed to behave, how I was fated to live, come from? Had I only dreamed all of my misery? Maybe it was all a mistake. Perhaps I'd been living the habits of someone else after all. Could I be happy?
I found him shaking within the confines of a closet. "I ...," he began, apologizing, stuttering with fear. I grabbed his wrist, dragged him out, letting his muscles sort out the problems of abrupt motion as we moved. No time for pleasantries. When we reached the door two mercenaries stood in the corridor. One raised his sword, the other stepped back.
Faster than the first thought I could move, I thrust my blade into his chest. I jerked it hard, pulling it out, and shook it at the second swordsman. "Have you no shame!" I said sharply. "Harassing an old man and a little boy!" Cowed, he stepped further back, and I raced up the stairs with Neden in tow. Only a moment later heard a surprised shout from the young mercenary. "Hey," he called, "wait a minute.”
But we were up the stairs, rushing along, birds with wings spread wide, the wind lifting us up, the thrill of motion, the chase, the threat of death exciting us both. I responded with manic inspiration, having lived long enough for my perceptions of myself to fray, I felt my life a story, and death would simply be a convenient but abrupt close. Maybe I would even merit a few tears shed by those who heard my tale. The boy, though, still held the belief that his life mattered. He gripped my hand tightly, using my presence to stave off fear. His faith in me, need of me, pleased me to no end. I knew I could never truly be a father, but these odd, desperate flirtations with the role gave me strange comfort.
Perhaps, his warm hand suggested, l could succeed where my father had failed, after all.
The footsteps behind us came louder. I whirled, slashed my blade at the young man I'd dressed down earlier. He ducked out of the way, thrust his sword point toward me. I parried, my ears filling with the sound of metal sliding against metal, raspy as at dry
throat. My grip on my pommel strained as his youthful strength drove me back. My arrogance now earned its reward as I lost my footing and began to trip on the stairs behind me.
Neden saved the day then, roaring out a dwarf oath and lurching forward. With his small but stocky arms he grabbed the wrists of the swordsman, lifting the man's arms up and knocking him off balance. Our blades parted and the swordsman teetered for a moment, his left arm making a wide, frantic circle as he struggled to stay upright. I lifted my left leg and gently touched him with my toes—just enough to send him rolling down the stairs with a surprised cry. From below, more cries of surprise as he bowled into the mercenaries running up the stairs.
But there was no time to savor the moment. At least not outwardly. I wanted Neden to think me of grim purpose, so I hid my joviality. Is that not what boys want from their fathers?—a solid man, one with serious thoughts in his mind, who knows the proportions of danger when in the thick of it, but can laugh about it later? Inside, though, where I created my narrative of myself, I laughed. The invasion of my home filled me with glee.