by Marc Secchia
I rotated a goblet of Imurian root beer in my hands, but did not drink. Rubiny had once knocked me out cold with such a vessel. Oh Mata, I missed even the acid edge of her tongue, and would have given ten thousand ukals and more to be struck down by her again!
Curious thing about that cat, I thought. Standing beside the fire for a span to dry my clothes, sweating and steaming, the salcat came to me as cats will and rubbed itself around my legs. I was bracing myself against its huge strength, when suddenly I had the most lucid impression I should examine the salcat as I would a human patient. I discovered in its left ear an advanced and no doubt painful infestation of maggots, perhaps a fight-wound that had become infected. I ejected the maggots into my hand and flicked them into the fire. Add some flavour to the meat. Then, while pretending to scratch the cat’s ear, I put the wound right.
The drudge’s smile was more gaps than teeth, and those that remained were blackened on the edges from anna of chewing khat, a narcotic tobacco leaf that masters used to keep their drudges compliant. He grunted, “Old Cahal don’t often take to strangers. He’d like as eat them.”
I stared at the huge salcat, wondering if cats were attuned to magic? Did it sense who I was? The cat returned a contemptuous stare that clearly relegated my kind to the ranks of fools.
Pensively, I moved back to a bench hard by a bay window. Sleet slopped icily against the too-small glass panes. Dirty glass. For some reason, this irritated me, even though it was fully dark outside. Nothing to see out there.
Truly told, my life was nought but a cart-wreck. Perhaps if I could find reasons for some of what had happened to me, my existence might become bearable. The grief was no less raw, and there was no lessening of the pain in sight. Truly told, it was as the old saying went: Ulim’s Reavers had bereaved my quoph, and brought me nought but woe upon woe.
Ay, had the Honoria Telmak not put a price on my head? Her servants and informants would surely be on the lookout for me. Kidnapper of the precious daughter Telmak … but the risk was worth it.
In the dirty windowpane, my face appeared haggard, my eyes sunken and hollow, the cheekbones sculpted to a sepulchral prominence. When last had I eaten a proper meal? Maybe the Wurm was devouring my very being from within, the insidious smoke winding its way about my quoph …
“Arlak.” A touch upon my shoulder.
I jumped at the touch. “Master Telmak.”
He clasped my forearm firmly, slid awkwardly into the bench opposite, and set his goblet down with a small clink. Beneath the hood, his face was a dark secret.
“Thank you for coming, Master Telmak.”
“The least I could do,” he said. “You took a great risk coming here.”
“I am desolate.”
After an everlasting silence, he grated, “Let me guess–you left her.”
“She left me.”
I studied his knuckles, white against the dull ormetal. “Where is Rubiny now?”
“You don’t know. You don’t know either, do you?”
Slowly, with an evident effort at self-control, the Master Telmak shook his head. He said, “I think you had best speak first. What happened?”
I told him more than I had intended. He pushed back his hood, listened intently, and asked terse questions. Often, he shifted as though in pain–but he sat through the makh it took me to relate the story–Rubiny, children, Jyla, and all. When I was done, we sat and sipped our dark, earthy-tasting beers for a span.
At yet another grimace, I asked, “What’s the matter with your back?”
“Is this Arlak asking, or El Shashi?”
Odd question … “El Shashi,” I said.
“Then I have nothing to say.”
I looked at my fingers. “Maybe you’re hiding something? I mean–I’m sorry! I didn’t intend …”
The Master Telmak seemed a man wrestling with powerful emotions. I guessed it had to do with the loss of Rubiny, or perhaps he was coming to terms with having four grandchildren he had not known existed? And before he could know them, they had been lost to him again? But did that account for the sudden welling of his eyes, or the way his composure wavered?
“The reason I advised Rubiny not to Matabond with you … oh, Arlak!” he sighed hugely. “Forgive me. She is your half-sister.”
“What?”
“Well might you accuse me of harbouring secrets–Arlak, look at me.”
The Master Telmak gripped my hands, but I jerked them loose. “I’ve a sister? I exchanged vows with my sister?”
“Be still! We are in great danger.”
I sank back into my seat, quaffed half my beer without drawing breath. What little was left of my life’s foundations were crumbling by the span. I stared at him over the rim of my goblet, saying, pleading moreover, “I have four children with my half-sister … oh Gods, this can’t be happening. Tell me it isn’t true.”
“I’m not Ariabak-spawn.”
Suddenly another insight struck me like a runaway cart. I stammered, “You’re my … my … no. Are you …?”
“Yes.”
“Tanak is my–was my–”
“He was my brother,” said the Master Telmak. “My younger brother. Lumina was his Matabond lover, but sadly, they were childless.”
“Yes.” They had always treated me as a son. I own the lie–that my father abandoned me in the village–did not hurt as much as I felt it should. “So you are Sorlak?”
“Orik Sorlakson,” he said. “Sorlak was my father.”
I nodded slowly. “Clever.” Children were never named after their grandfather. It was not the Roymerian way.
“The Honoria tried to have you killed,” said my father. My father! How strange the word rang in my ear. “They poisoned your mother, but the athocary cut you out with a knife while she yet lived. You owe your life to her courage.”
“Dear sweet Mata!”
His smile was terrible, harsh, and strained. It held me by a force greater than chains. “It is difficult, otherwise, to murder a Warlock.”
I managed a wheeze by way of reply. Had a jerlak kicked me in the gut, I would have been no less capable of speech.
My father appeared emboldened now, as though this revelation, once wrenched loose of its hiding-place and dangled in the daylight, had lifted a great weight off his shoulders. To carry such a secret for the fifty-one anna of my life thus far! Unimaginable. No wonder I felt drawn to him! But … a Warlock? An Eldrik Warlock? My thoughts resembled a flock of sparrows ambushed by a hawk, fluttering desperately in all directions. Eldoria, as the Eldrik lands were called, and the Fiefdoms were technically at war. The border was closed–and no sane man would brave Faloxxian territory to get there. The Faloxx controlled all access to the narrow isthmus which guarded entry to Eldoria. There was no shipping, no trade, no travel–nothing. How in Mata’s name did Orik expect me to believe that he and my mother … my Eldrik mother …?
I had children by my own flesh and blood–Mata forgive my iniquity!
“Shut your mouth, son.”
I snapped my jaw shut with a growl. “You owe me–”
“An explanation. Yes.” Orik regarded me levelly as I mastered my anger. “Let me tell you of your heritage, son, for this I’ve kept hidden for too long now and mark my words, what pain and sorrow I have wrought! Before you were born, there was a time when the Eldrik and the Umarite lived in peace. I was a trader, and though a young man, I commanded a fleet of seven ships which plied the Gulf of Erbon between Hakooi and Eldoria. I held the secret of the northwest passage, past Faloxxir and through the Nxthu Straits, to the city of Eldoran. A fairer city you cannot imagine. Beauty to make a man weep. Eldoran is tooled of palisk-quartz and jade, and the streets are laid in zigzag patterns of grey and black granite from the quarries of Ummandor.”
“The Eldrik are greatly skilled in the arts and crafts, and masters of the ways of magic. And they live longer than you or I. They take pleasure in the manufacture of beautiful, long-lasting things. No preoccupation of th
eirs is hurried. They make of all endeavours an art, a dance, a song.”
“Mark my words, the Eldrik are a curious people. Strife and discord are unknown. They live in harmony with the land, going to great lengths to protect and nurture it. All share in a communal mind called the gyael-irfa and they are ruled by the Eldrik Sorcerers Council.”
Orik abruptly leaned across the table, hissing, “Swear that you will never repeat what I am about to tell you.”
“I–uh–”
“Swear it!”
“I swear,” said I, taken aback by his ferocity. “I swear upon my honour.”
“And in Mata’s name.”
“And in Mata’s name and by all Her holiness.”
My father was struggling for words, struggling, truly told, to shoehorn the many anna into the too-short space we could afford together. “Good,” he nodded. “The very anna I met Alannah–your mother–there was a split in the Council. It grew out of a disagreement over–” he lowered his voice, “–the Banishment.”
“Banishment?”
“Hush. Forget you heard that word.” Orik cast a distrustful look about the inn, but seemed satisfied by our distance from the nearest patrons. There was something wild in his manner now, a feyness and an affinity with danger. It frightened me. But I wanted to learn more. I perched on the edge of my seat, leaning close, watching the firelight play across his grave features. No jokes here. This was life … and the white of death.
“Alannah taught me that the Eldrik have not always dwelled in this utopian state,” he continued in a whisper. “Around sixty or seventy anna ago, as best I can ascertain, a powerful Sorcerer called Lucan rose to the ascendancy in the Eldrik Sorcerers Council. He was determined to modernise Eldoran. He preached a society of perfect harmony and peace. A place for everyone who wanted to contribute. A benevolent leadership. Shared decision-making about the use of resources, commerce, education–”
“A great leader?”
My father’s hands clenched into fists. “Great, charismatic, and dangerous. Terribly dangerous.”
“How so?”
“Look, Alannah found it painful to talk about her part in the whole affair. As I understand it, this Lucan’s signature policy was to banish from Eldoran–forever–persons deemed undesirable.”
It was beginning to make sense. “And those opposed headed the lists …?”
Orik spread his hands. “Lucan created some great magic called the Banishment and these poor people were shipped off … Mata knows where. Apparently children are tested at the ages of seven and twelve by sinister Warlocks called Interrogators, who analyse the child to determine their talents and future occupation.”
“You mean they can’t choose for themselves?”
“Not when your elders know best.” He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “It sounds at odds with the Umarik mindset, not so? And I believe this is still the practice. Mark my words well, Arlak.”
“And if these Interrogators identify some undesirable–?”
Orik made a cutting gesture across his neck.
Banished … what a way to govern!
I wondered about the magic Jyla had loosed that diabolical day. Why raise the Wurm and store up such a wealth of power, if not to break the Banishment? Was that her goal? Laudable, even, judging from what I now knew. Although surely, the way she had tortured and killed Janos, and wrecked my life, marked her for evil? Or ambitious to the point of madness? I squirmed on the hard bench. Understand Jyla? Fie! I wanted to hate her, the Nethespawn Sorceress! This new knowledge of mine might cast her deeds in a very different light.
“The complicating factor,” said Orik, raising his forefinger, “was that Lucan died while they were creating the spells for the Banishment–right at the climax of their work, he died. It was a great mystery. Now the Eldrik Sorcerers do not know how to unmake their foul work.”
I cared not a fig for Lucan. I demanded, “Tell me of my mother.”
Orik nodded. “You are her very image. She was as dark as you, and very slender, with that jet-black hair and your eyes. A true beauty. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.” My father’s gaze was far away, out the window, deep in a different anna. “When I first marked you at Telmak Lodge, my son, I had to draw aside to weep. And how could I communicate to you what rent my heart? Had the Honoria learned who you were, she would have killed you. She’s a hard, hard woman.”
“Ay.”
“But I digress.” He smiled–perhaps at some happy memory–and for the first time, his face softened and I saw a different man. A man who had loved, and suffered, as I. “Alannah was a minor Warlock of the Council. She fled Eldoria when the Council declared the borders closed. I never learned exactly why, but I believe a relative of hers was Banished. And I helped smuggle her out.”
“And the Honoria–”
“I was already promised. It was a loveless match, arranged by our parents. I’m afraid that I saw Alannah for many anna thereafter.”
I could not withhold a chuckle. Orik chuckled too. “Ah, I was unwise, son, as foolish a man as ever walked the Fiefdoms. I could not bring myself to let Alannah go. During that voyage back from Eldoria we fell in love, oh, so deeply in love, we floated in the clouds from day to day. Though I was Matabound to the Honoria Telmak, I simply had to keep her too. You understand, don’t you …? Alannah lived in a small crofthold not far from here and I would sneak out at night just to catch a glimpse, just to be near her. When she let her hair down, it fell to her waist in a dark river. I could waste a makh just watching her brush it out.”
I nodded. “That’s how I feel–how I felt–about Rubiny.”
Orik said roughly, “They found her just before you were born. While Alannah was still weak abed, the midwife gave her a poisoned drink. But she could not bring herself to kill the babe. I thought I saw the Honoria’s hand in her murder. Later, though, I found a letter addressed to Alannah from the Council.”
“The Eldrik?”
“Truly told. I believe a number of Sorcerers and Warlocks fled Eldoria during and after the Banishment. The Council hunted them down like animals, one by one, and killed them all.”
I drew breath and vented a foul curse.
Orik clasped my hands again. “Son, I know how you feel. But you should not let the evil of others corrupt your quoph. That is not Mata’s way.”
“What boon did Mata ever grant me?”
“I know not,” said he, “but I know this–you say you have twice seen the blue condor. Twice, during those times of your greatest extremity. You are marked, Arlak, make no mistake. You are marked and sealed. You are Hers.”
“Would you read my fortune too?”
“So bitter …”
My lip curled in response. “Yes, father, I am bitter at what has happened. Can you blame me?”
“Do you blame me?”
I considered this for a span. “No. No, I do not.”
“And neither do I. How could you have known? You hardly look alike. If there’s fault here, then I must own it. I ought to have stopped you … but I was afraid. So afraid.”
“Were I hitched to wild jerlak that day …”
“Ay.”
I would not have believed. My antagonism toward him drained away. Orik’s revelations were beginning to penetrate, to make sense of thoughts, feelings, and events that had long haunted me. He had opened for me a casket of treasures and pain. Truly told, and made me a trustee of such intimate secrets as whispered in the wrong ear would cost his life, and the lives of uncountable others.
I added, “So you gave me to your brother to raise. Yes. And your back? What happened there?” I tried a smile. A smile for the truth of my parentage, after all these anna! “And, before you ask, I am asking as your son.”
The word conjured up all kinds of alien feelings in my breast.
Orik said evenly, “The Honoria had me whipped a hundred strokes with an ulinbarb switch.” I winced. “Ay, I nearly died. I still have the scars, many scars.”
Orik inclined his chin. “It healed badly. The muscles are often in spasm.”
That was why he always stood so awkwardly, so stiff-shouldered …
No more pain. It was the least I could do, my gift to the man who had given me life, and hope, and shared his story with me. Our story.
Truth! Clues to a destiny undreamt-of, and questions to fill a salcat’s basket of lifetimes. Had Jyla not touched this truth–unwittingly–when she said that my hands might be made for magic? Dear sweet Mata, I was son to a Warlock! I felt as a man sent a second time through the birth canal by the enormity of Orik’s revelations. I knew nought but this: Now I must claim my heritage. I must walk magic’s mysterious paths. Somewhere in the Eldrik part of my parentage, lay the answers I was seeking.
My life had until this point been an expression of other’s needs, greater than my own, made manifest in me and through me. My parents–my foster parents–trading. Janos, who shared his knowledge and loved me as his own kin. My true father, lost to me all these anna, now found. Jyla, needing me to produce vast lakes of power through the Wurm and her strange Web, that she herself could not generate. I was their tool, driven by their needs. Now it was time to be me.
Arlak. El Shashi. Bringer of the Wurm. Who was I?
I laid my hands upon my father’s and gripped them fiercely. “Father, I am not for nought the man called El Shashi.”
His eyes registered surprise, fear, hope. Then shock, as my power coursed deep. His mouth opened in a soundless scream. Burying his head in his arms, he shuddered as strongly as a ship caught in a maelstrom.
I held firm until my work was complete.