Hope and Red

by Jon Skovron

  Hope ran to her straw mat in the back of the kitchen and curled up into a ball. She felt like crying, but no tears came. Only black thoughts of violence and revenge. She thought Crunta must be the cruelest brother in the monastery.

  But she hadn’t yet encountered Racklock.

  * * *

  Bleak Hope’s favorite job was to care for the temple. The floor, walls, and altar were all made of the smooth black rock on the island, but in this place, it had been polished to a shine that made it feel at once solemn and bright. She loved the smell of the prayer candles, which gave a hint of jasmine as they burned. Most of all, she loved the tall stained glass windows at the top of the temple. She didn’t understand the pictures they showed, strange creatures and black-armored warriors, but the colors reminded her of the necklace she had made for her father. She had supposed that she could never enjoy such things again. But there was a tiny ember that remained, and grew slightly warmer at the sight of sunlight streaming in through those colored windows.

  “So here is where you shirk your duties,” came a deep voice.

  Hope tore her gaze from the windows and looked at the short, powerfully built brother known as Racklock. He stood with his arms folded, his face hard. Hope knew Racklock was second in the order only to Hurlo, and all the other brothers feared him.

  “It’s my duty to clean the temple every day, master,” said Hope.

  “I saw no cleaning.” Racklock took a step toward her. “Only idling. We feed you, clothe you, give you a place when the world surely would have been rid of you. And this is how you repay us?”

  Hope had learned from Crunta that defending oneself could be dangerous. So she only bowed her head and said, “Sorry, master.”

  “You are not a woman yet, but already your forked tongue tries to aid you.” He said it with calm disdain as he walked over to a cabinet. He opened the cabinet, which was filled with an assortment of items, and pulled out a long, wooden cane. As he examined it, he said, “Others may be fooled, but I see what you truly are. A vile sickness that seeks to destroy this order from the inside. An evil to be purged.”

  * * *

  It was on that sun-dappled afternoon in early fall that Hurlo was shaken from a deep meditation by the sound of a little girl’s screams. He rushed from his tiny room, across the sunny courtyard, and into the temple. There he found Bleak Hope cowering on the ground, her face pressed against the cold stone floor, her black robe wet with blood. Racklock loomed over her. His thick shoulders surged as he brought the cane hard against her back and she screamed again.

  That was the moment Hurlo understood that he had not rescued the girl. He had merely moved her from one hell to another. That was also when he discovered a new hell of his own. The hell of allowing an innocent to suffer. True, he did not wield the cane, nor did he ask that the girl be brought to him in the first place. But as he looked down at her ashen face, he knew he could not stay in this hell a moment longer.

  Racklock brought the cane down again, but this time Hurlo was there, little more than a black blur as he took the cane from his brother’s grip, then knocked him forward so that he tripped over the prostrate girl. Racklock landed on his hands, then vaulted forward into a summersault so that he landed on his feet. But as he spun to face Hurlo, the grandteacher poked him in the throat with the tip of the cane just hard enough to leave him choking and temporarily unable to speak.

  Hurlo watched him retch and wheeze for a moment, then said mildly, “Did you have something to say? No? Then allow me to inform you that henceforth you will not harm this girl. Her cries disturb my meditation, and the smell of her blood in the temple vexes me. Nod once if you understand, twice if you wish me to strike you again.”

  Racklock’s face darkened with a reddish-purple color, but his lips pressed together in a hard line as he nodded once, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the temple.

  Hurlo looked down at the shuddering little girl at his feet. He had a sudden urge to comfort her. To scoop her up in his arms and rock her to a sweet, dreamless sleep. But it was only a momentary flash. He was not, after all, some peace-loving, gentle old man. He was grandteacher of the Vinchen order, and one of the greatest warriors the empire had ever known. So instead, he walked quietly over to the meditation mat that lay before the black stone altar, and knelt down.

  They stayed like that for some time, the girl prostrate on the floor, the old monk kneeling, silent, his back to her.

  Finally she said in little more than a whisper, “Master…thank you for saving me.”

  “I am no master, child. I am a teacher.”

  She paused to consider that a moment. Then he heard her shuffle a little closer on hands and knees. “What do you teach?”

  “Many things. Although I am not always successful. I tried to teach Racklock restraint, and it appears I failed in that.”

  “He was punishing me.”

  “A punishment should fit the crime. What did you do that warranted such a beating?”

  “I…don’t know. He said I was evil.”

  “I see. And do you feel evil?”

  She did not answer.

  “Come and kneel facing me,” he said.

  She shuffled around him cautiously, still on hands and knees. He could see where her black robes stuck to her back from the drying blood, but she did not flinch or wince at the pain. She knelt as he did, facing him, but with her head bowed.

  “Look at me, child,” he said.

  She looked up at him and he allowed himself to look deeply into those haunting eyes in a way he had not done before.

  “I do see darkness in you,” he said. “That is not surprising. Darkness begets darkness.”

  Still she didn’t answer, but only continued to look at him.

  “Does it frighten you? This darkness within yourself?”

  Her expression remained fixed, but tears welled up in her eyes.

  “What if I could teach you how to control that darkness? How to use it to become a great and powerful warrior?” The moment he said those words, his heart began to race. What he proposed was forbidden by both The Book of Storms and the codes of the Vinchen order. But as he said it, he saw the light that broke on the little girl’s face like the first dawn of a new world, and he knew that fulfilling such a promise was worth any risk. “Would you like me to teach you this?”

  “Oh, yes, please!” she said, the tears now freely coursing down her cheeks.

  “Yes, Grandteacher,” he corrected her.

  “Yes, Grandteacher.”

  “It will not be easy. In fact, you will suffer a great deal along the way. There may even be times when you hate me. When you think me nearly as cruel as Racklock. Do you still wish to learn?”

  “Oh yes, Grandteacher!” she shouted, her face wet and flushed.

  “Good. Then let us begin your first lesson.”

  “I am ready, Grandteacher!” Her body tensed, as if she could barely restrain herself from leaping to her feet.

  “Your first lesson is to breathe.”

  She cocked her head slightly and paused. “Only to breathe, Grandteacher?”

  “Breath is the most important thing. It is life itself. Until you master it, you can do nothing. A warrior can no more afford unrestrained joy than he can unbridled terror, and while it is true we cannot stop ourselves from having emotions, we can choose not to be swept away by them. We do this with the anchor of breath. So right now, you must breathe slow and deep until this tempest of emotion passes, and you return to calmness.”

  “Yes, Grandteacher,” said Bleak Hope.

  The old man and the little girl knelt facing each other, and the temple was silent except for their breath.

  4

  Sadie knew she couldn’t sail a ship, even a small sloop like the Savage Wind, with just herself and an eight-year-old boy. The trouble was, now that she’d been shamed at the Drowned Rat, none of her previous associates would have anything to do with her. In order to gather a crew, she had to look furt
her afield and bring on people she didn’t know as well from outside Paradise Circle.

  She had a few connections over in Hammer Point, where they didn’t give a piss about Bracers Madge or the Drowned Rat, or shame, for that matter. Bull Mackey was a square-jawed fighter she’d done some time with on the Empty Cliffs. He brought along a tall, thin wag with sunken eyes, named Spinner, who was either his cousin or his boyfriend, or maybe both. She also knew some people up in Silverback, from when she’d been a drug mule for Jix the Lift. Avery Birdhouse was an actor who was nearly as handsome as he thought he was. Wergishaw was mute but good in a scrap, and played a hell of a fine tune on a fiddle.

  It had been a long time since Sadie had to convince a man that she was every bit as capable has him, and probably more. Sadie the Goat’s reputation had spoken for her. It was why she’d been so desperate to keep it. Now she was back at the beginning. But she’d done it once before and if anything, she was even better at it the second time around. So it was only a week before she’d gathered herself a crew. There was only one problem. Not a one of them knew how to sail. That is, until Finn showed up.

  It was a rare sunny morning in New Laven. Sadie stood on the deck of the Savage Wind, which was still tied at the same dock. She held up a line and glared at her crew. “Nobody knows where this rope goes?”

  “I thought it went up front somewhere,” said Bull Mackey.

  “Nah, I saw it was tied on the right side,” said Spinner.

  “Who even took it off in the first place?” asked Sadie.

  “Sorry, I tripped over it,” said Avery Birdhouse.

  Sadie glared at him. “I thought actors were supposed to be graceful.”

  “It’s actually called a line, not a rope,” said a new voice, rough but cheerful. “Also, the front of a boat is called the bow, and the right side when facing the bow is called starboard.”

  A man stood on the dock, smiling up at them. His skin was deeply tanned, like he’d spent a lot of time under the sun, and he wore the loose-fitting linen shirt of a sailor. He also wore a black patch over one eye.

  “That so?” asked Sadie, shifting her glare to this stranger. “And I suppose you’d know.”

  The man seemed unfazed by her tone. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Sadie squinted at him. “Should I?”

  “Me and you tossed a few times in the alley behind Gunpowder Hall.” He waited expectantly. After a moment, he added, “I had both eyes back then.”

  Sadie scratched at her matted hair, then shook her head. “Nope. I bent a lot of cocks in that alley. Can’t say I remember you.”

  His smile faltered.

  “But you’re a proper wag of the Circle, then?”

  His smile returned. “Born and raised. Lucky for you, I came down to the docks a while back and started working on ships.”

  “Why’s that lucky for me?”

  “I heard there was a molly calling herself Captain Sadie who was putting together a crew for a new business venture. Looks like you have some solid wags here, but what you need is someone who really knows their way around a ship.”

  “And that’s you, is it?”

  “It is.”

  Sadie considered it a moment. “What’s your name?”

  “On these docks, they call me Mister Finn.”

  “Yeah, well I’m calling you Missing Finn.”

  “On account of my eye?” he asked.

  “On account of where in hells have you been this whole week I’ve been trying to get this tub fixed up?” She held out her hand to him. “Welcome aboard the Savage Wind.”

  His smile grew even broader as he took her hand and climbed aboard. “What sort of business venture is this, anyway?”

  “Oh, didn’t I say?” asked Sadie. “Piracy. We’ll be plundering the coast.”

  “Piracy?” asked Missing Finn. “On New Laven? It’s never been done.”

  Sadie slapped his back. “And that, my wag, is why it’s going to work.”

  True to his word, Missing Finn knew his way around a ship and had them fit to sail in a few hours. He instructed each member of the crew on their tasks and helped Sadie plot their course along the coast.

  “That’s it, then.” Finn rolled up the map. “We’re ready to set sail.”

  “Not quite.” Sadie tapped her finger on one of the chart divider’s points. “My best wag is out doing a little job for me. He should be back anytime now.”

  * * *

  Red had been sitting outside the Sailor’s Mother all day, posing as a beggar while he waited for a suitable mark. He’d even made a few coppers by the time the sun began to set and at last he saw what he’d been looking for. A man on the small side, wearing a broad captain’s hat and fine black leather boots that went almost to the knee.

  Red waited until he’d entered the inn, then quickly pocketed his begged coppers and followed. He stepped inside in time to see the black boots stomp up the stairs to the rooms.

  “Hey, boy. What are you doing?”

  Backus leaned across the front desk, eyeing him suspiciously.

  “Oh, uh…” Red realized he should have thought of an alibi ahead of time. “That’s my, uh, uncle, and—”

  “No, I remember you. That red-eyed boy following Sadie around. What are you up to?” He stepped out from behind his desk and started to roll up his sleeves. “You better not be making mischief for my customers.”

  Red had been on the streets long enough to see a beating coming. Without another word, he ran through the doors and out into the safety of the crowded street. He hid himself behind a cart and watched through the spokes to see if Backus would come after him. He waited a few minutes before deciding the danger had passed. But now what was Red supposed to do? There was no way he could sneak past the front desk with Backus looking out for him. But he couldn’t go back to the ship either. Sadie had told him she wanted a proper captain’s hat and boots. This was his chance to prove he was good enough to belong on her crew. That he wasn’t a charity case.

  “Whatcha doing, Rixie?”

  Red glanced up and saw Filler, the boy from his old pickpocket gang. Filler had been a terrible pickpocket, and didn’t seem all that smart either. But he was a head taller than any other kid his age, so they’d all done what he told them.

  “It’s Red now,” he said self-importantly.

  “Who says?” asked Filler.

  “Sadie the Goat.”

  “Oh.” Filler looked impressed. He was keen enough to know the name, but thankfully not so keen as to know she was recently shamed. “You with her now?”

  “Yeah, so I don’t have time to…” He trailed off as an idea came to him. He looked at Filler appraisingly and a smile slowly grew on his face. “Say, Filler, my wag.” He put his hand on Filler’s shoulder, attempting that casual swagger Sadie had whenever she wanted Red to do something for her. “How’s about you help me out with this job for Sadie?”

  “Me?” Filler’s eyes got wide. “Helping out Sadie the Goat?”

  “That’s right,” said Red. “I’ll tell her what a true wag you are.”

  “Okay, what do I have to do?”

  “Follow me.” He led Filler back across the street to the Sailor’s Mother, then into the side alley and around to the back of the inn. The sun had set by then, and the alley was dark except for the light that came from occupied rooms.

  “It’s awful dark back here,” said Filler.

  “It’s not even,” Red said absently as he scanned the lit windows. He saw his mark on the second floor, one window to the left of center. He watched the old sailor take off his hat and coat, then the light went out. “Alright, Filler. Stand here.” He positioned Filler directly beneath the window. “And put your hands together like this.” He showed his own hands with fingers interlocked.

  Filler locked his hands together. “Now what?”

  “I’m going to run at you, and you’re going to give me a boost up to the window.”

  Filler looked up at th
e window. “I don’t know if I can throw you that high.”

  “Fine, then how about to that little ledge below it?”

  Filler squinted. “I don’t see any ledge.”

  “You wouldn’t see a flaming pile of horseshit if it was hurled at you.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “Just trust me. It’s there. Give me a heave and I’ll catch it.”

  Filler shrugged and held out his hands.

  Red stepped as far back as the narrow alley allowed, then ran forward and jumped into Filler’s waiting hands. At the same moment Filler pulled up, Red pushed off and was launched into the air.

  Filler had been right about the window being too high, but Red overshot the ledge beneath it, slamming into a flat, empty section of wall. He bit down on his own whimper as he scrabbled for any purchase. His stomach lurched as he felt himself drop for a moment. Then his toes found the ledge. There was a sickening moment when his body started to tilt back into empty air, but he widened his stance and bent his knees out, like he’d seen lizards do when they clung to walls, and he found his balance.

  “Guess there was a ledge,” observed Filler below him. “But how are you going to reach the window above you?”

  Red hadn’t actually gotten that far into his plan. He craned his head up and tried to gauge the distance. It looked like it was close enough to reach if he jumped. But if he missed, it didn’t seem likely he’d be able to land back on the ledge. He couldn’t get a clear angle to see exactly how far of a fall it was, which was probably for the best. He wasn’t going to let Sadie down. He had to do this. So he bent his knees even lower, his stomach and the insides of his thighs pressed against the gritty wall.

  “You’re not going to—” began Filler.

  Before he could finish, Red launched himself up into the air, his arms stretched as high as they would go, fingers straining toward the windowsill. And he caught it.

  “Piss’ell,” Filler said, his voice somewhere near awe.

  Red hung from the sill by his fingers, his boots scratching at the wall as he tried to find even a momentary purchase so he could get a better grip. His fingers were already burning with fatigue and he didn’t think he could hold on much longer. Doubt and fear began to creep up his spine. But then he remembered the day he first started painting for his mother. He’d looked up at her pleadingly through snot and tears of frustration. “I can’t draw like you!” She’d looked down at him with that knowing smirk of hers and said, “If you believe you will succeed, there is always a chance you might. But if you believe that you will fail, then you will always fail. Never allow yourself to lose before you begin.”