by Heath Pfaff
That made me smile. "You're a good person, Malice." I said, and I meant it.
She smiled and gave a short, sharp laugh. "You don't have to flatter me now. I was already going to tell her you did well." With that, she turned and walked away.
I walked back to my room lost in deep thought. There were so many different problems assaulting me that I hardly knew where to begin in tackling them. Silent was missing, and Kye's time was running out so fast that each passing minute terrified me more. I desperately wanted her to be in my room when I got there, but I knew that was an unrealistic hope. She was being watched quite closely, and while she could safely make excuses to visit Malice, she couldn't be seen coming to see me all the time. I desperately wanted to talk to her, only she could calm the rush of chaos that threatened to consume me.
"You spearing Malice, too? You get around a lot for a trainee." Wisp's voice cut through my concentration, and I glared at her. She laughed in the sharp, derogatory way that she could when she was trying to offend. "Don't think you'll be mounting me, boy. I'm no whore like the purple eyed bitch or that cunt of a trainer. I'd rather go naked to the stable and let the pigs have a..."
Whatever else she might have been about to say never cleared her mouth. "Then why don't you do so, and plug at least one of your filthy holes." I snapped, the words ripping free from me with all the force of the bottled up turmoil within me. I knew they were a mistake even as they cleared my throat. There was a flash of motion and I was suddenly two feet in the air, my back slammed against the door to my room with such force that I heard the boards bend.
"What was that, you piece of stinking hound shit?" Wisp's voice was full of rage, her black eyes boring deep into my own with such a fearsome hate I wanted to shiver at my very core, but I wouldn't let myself. Her cold, draconic hand with its razor claws squeezed so tight about my throat that I struggled to pull breath. "I could sever your head just by squeezing your neck a bit more," she whispered, and I judged that she was trying to decide whether or not she might do just that.
"...wouldn't have to look at your ass of a face...anymore." I spit the words out through my constricted throat. She roared her rage and slammed me back against the door again with such ferocity that this time the boards actually did crack.
Her free hand came up in a blur and she raked it down across my field of vision. Suddenly there was blood pouring down my face, running into my eyes so that I could barely see and I realized then that I might die, that Wisp might kill me. I wondered if my death might free Kye from her magical binding. I didn't think so, but I realized that I would not have to see her die now. I smiled despite the terrible pain it caused my ravaged face.
"It looks like your face is the one that we will be thankful not to have to see anymore." She spat venomously. There was a sudden rush of activity and I felt myself fall the ground in a heap, my back against the door. I tried to blink the blood from eyes, but every time I managed to make some headway, the sticky red liquid built back up almost immediately. Though I couldn't see, I could hear voices.
"What do you think you are doing?" A sharp, authoritative voice demanded, and there was violence in the words. It was Malice.
"He... he insulted me... I was just showing him..." Wisp's voice came and, to my grim satisfaction, there was a tremor in it.
I heard the sound of a blunt impact and something heavy hitting the ground. "He is a trainee, and you are a full Knight of Ethan. If you can't take an insult from a young boy with one tenth of your ability, you are a discredit to all of us."
"You're just protecting him because you like it when he fuc-" I heard another impact followed by a deep groan.
Malice's voice came again, calm and as cold as I'd ever heard it. "I'll be filing a report on your misconduct and recommending that you return to a second year training regimen. It's obvious that you do not have the restraint needed for a member of your office."
"Ethaniel will hear about..." Wisp began, but Malice's voice cut in over her again.
"Yes he will. I have served as his master of instruction for one hundred and four years, Wisp. That is sixty years longer that you have been alive. Believe me when I say that I know Ethaniel, and know what he expects from his Knights. He will, indeed, hear about this. You are dismissed from duty until you receive official word of judgment on your actions." Her words had a finality about them that dared Wisp to speak out again. She did not, though I did hear her get up and walk away. Malice came towards me, barely making a sound as she approached. I could sense her bending down over me and then I felt one of her clawed hands brushing back the hair from my face.
"Damn it!" She cursed with a fierceness that startled me. "I heard the commotion and came as fast as I could. I'm sorry, Lowin."
I shook my head, not sure whether or not I was happy. In death I might have at least escaped my worries. Malice's strong arms lifted me from where I lay against the door and she carried me into my room. She did her best to clean the blood and mess from my wounds, but as my vision came clear I could see that she was more than a little distressed by what she saw. "I need to get Merrywin." She whispered softly to me. "She'll need to put in stitches, and maybe some healing salve. I'll be back in a few moments, try not to move too much." She pushed a clean cloth torn from my bedding against my face. "Hold this tight against the wounds until I get back." She got up and I heard her leave.
Never one to listen when I thought I could get away with it, I got up from my bed and stumbled my way blindly to my closet, opening it to expose the small mirror that was there to aid in my shaving. I took the cloth from my face and stared at my face in the mirror. There were four distinct, jagged lines running down my face. Each was quite deep and oozing blood copiously. My lips were cut all the way through, leaving them to hang in flaps. I sighed, and blood followed my breath out onto the mirror. I walked back to my bed and lay down, covering my face. I had not considered myself attractive before, but now there was no question in the matter. Kye would be upset, I thought, as I lay bleeding.
Merrywin and Malice were back in short order, and even Merrywin winced when she saw the damage beneath my once white, now red-soaked, scrap of bedding. She pulled a needle and thread from a bag of medical supplies she'd brought in with her. Malice stood at the edge of my bed, watching the process.
"I sent for Kyeia. I felt she should be made aware of the situation, since she has a vested interest in your health." The tall female warrior said. I was aware that Malice had actually sent for Kye merely for my benefit, but her pretext was well established. A Bound One would indeed be interested if there was a threat to the life of her prospective Knight. "Once she arrives, I will take up station outside your quarters for the night, Lowin. Tomorrow there will be a new guard assigned for the watch detail."
I nodded my thanks, not wanting to speak with my lips that hurt fiercely.
"This is going to be quite painful, and it's going to take a while." Merrywin said, bringing my focus back to the immediate problem at hand. "I wish I could do something for the pain but I don't have anything readily available and we need to get these wounds closed up quickly." With that, she went to work with her needle and thread. The pain was terrible, and there were multiple points where I thought I might lose consciousness, but I forced myself to remain aware. Each time the darkness threatened to creep in on me, I focused my eyes on Merrywin who was deftly working her needle with practiced skill. I had a difficult time keeping track of what was happening about my room, but I was vaguely aware that at some point Malice left, and was replaced by Kye who was kneeling at the edge of my bed, a pale, distressed look hiding just beneath the calm facade she wasn't successfully pulling off. In all, there were more than eighty stitches by the time Merrywin had completed her work.
"It looks bad now," I heard Merrywin say as she finished. "But once the wounds close up it won't be so bad. You're going to have scars, I'm afraid, but fighting men and women have scars. You'll be alright. At least you're a fast healer, and the salve will help that
even more. Just make sure to spread it on the wound if it starts to grow dry, once or twice a day should be enough." She left then, leaving me with a sealed container of the salve for my wounds. As she left, Kye rushed to my side and took my hand in hers. As she drew nearer to me, I could feel the outpouring of worry and hurt from her. She didn't speak, just held my hand and cried softly. After a time, she kissed my cheek gently, and whispered softly. "I love you, Lowin. I must go, but I'll try to come see you again before the week is out."
"I love you, Kye." I said, the words hard to understand coming from my tattered mouth. Fresh tears formed in Kye's eyes as she got up and left. I desperately didn't want her to go. I really wanted to talk to her about everything and anything I might, just to keep her in the room with me. The room was quiet for a time but I was only alone for a few minutes before Malice came back into the room, a ghost in the darkness of the night. I knew it was her immediately. I had spent enough time with her that I had learned the subtle characteristics of the way she moved. She sat on the side of my bed and put one of her powerful hands on my chest. For a time we just sat like that, quietly sharing the night. After a time she spoke.
"We fight so hard for our ideals and our causes that sometimes we forget that which is most vital. What does it mean to be a Knight, if one must protect those who are important, from those who are supposed to be our allies? Lowin, do we deserve this power that we hold, power scavenged from the lives of others? I don't know anymore. Surely not all of us do, and if not all of us, than do any of us? The cost is so... terrible, the result so unpredictable. Are we just monsters?" Her voice held a sad note of reflection, and a sincere sense of confusion. I wasn't sure what to say to her, so I put my hand on top of hers and squeezed firmly. It was a gesture I hoped told her that I didn't know the answers either, but I trusted her. I hoped it sufficed in place of words. I could feel the flesh around my wounds swelling uncomfortably against the stitches.
Malice gave a squeeze in return, then got up from my bed and left the room. I sat in the darkness thinking for a long time. The damage to my face and the incident between Wisp and me were of little real concern. Instead, I worried about Silent, fretted over Kye, and considered Malice's words. Kye seemed to believe in the cause she was giving her life to. That made me want to believe in it as well, but every time I thought of the fate that awaited her, I began to hate the world that would allow such a thing. It was easy to hate a world that had so scarred Malice and would soon take my Kyeia from me forever. For her, though, for the purple-eyed girl I loved, I would try not to hate those who tore us apart. For her I would fight to make the world a better place, and for Malice as well, so that she could have faith in her own purpose again.
I awoke the next morning before dawn, got up and went to the bathing room to clean myself up. I could do little more than dab at the painful wounds on my face, but I did my best to clean the dried blood from around the tender stitches. I dressed myself in a fresh set of clothes and returned to my room to apply salve to my injuries. Once I was cleaned, dressed, and salved I moved to the exit of my small building - I had begun to think of it as mine since I shared it with no one else - and proceeded outside. There was a new guard on duty already, and he turned to me as I exited into the darkness of early morning.
"Malice says you are off your training schedule for the next two days, until your injuries have time to begin knitting themselves back together." His voice was a guttural rumble, similar to that of Ethaniel and Tempest, and his mouth was lined with the razor teeth I had seen on a few others as well. I had grown accustomed the effect of what the Knights called "The Voice," over the four months I'd been at Fell Rock, but it still sent a chill down my spine whenever I heard it. I didn't know this particular Knight. I could see nothing of the rest of his body, hidden as it was beneath his shifting cloak, though I noted that he had close cropped, pale hair, and there were two holes cut in his hood to allow the protruding of a pair of wolf-like ears, black and gray furred.
"Thank you, sir. Might I ask your name?" I asked, as politely as possible. The words did not come out as clearly as I might have liked, but my lips were swollen and sore, and talking pulled at the stitches in a most uncomfortable way.
"I am Lithe." He said, in the same rumbling voice.
"I am Lowin." I replied, and added. "Though, I suppose you already know that. I intend to go to the practice field, whether I have set training today or not, will that be a problem?" I asked him, not wanting to argue the point if he said it was not all right, but also not wanting to sit alone in my room all day long. That gave me too much time to worry, and I didn't think I could stay sane if I had too much time to do that.
"I do not see a problem with that. No one said that you were not allowed to train if you so wished, only that you would not be required to do so." He nodded then smiled a toothy grin, one that held no particular malice or ill intent. I liked him better than Wisp already.
"Alright," I said, "Let us be off." He followed me dutifully to the practice field, a quiet but ever present guard. I wondered, briefly, if Wisp might try and track me down alone some time, to finish what she had started. I also wondered if that really bothered me. I knew it should, but I had hard time being frightened at the prospect. I made my way to the balance course, intent upon besting my performance on it from the day before, but not sure that I was up to the challenge. Most of my body felt fine, but I was learning that there were many different, unconscious motions that caused the cuts across my face to pull and twist. I stepped onto the first pole in the balance training area and prepared myself to move. I found my first steps to be remarkably easy and I let myself pick up speed as I went, each step going a little faster than the last. By the time I reached the midpoint I was moving as quickly as I ever had before, each foot seeming to find a place to rest of its own volition. I realized, then, that I had finally felt out my center of balance. The exercise of the day before must have awoken my body's natural ability to identify that invisible focus point and now I was unconsciously balancing with that in mind. I flew through the remainder of the course with relative ease, although landing the last jump still caused me some trouble. I didn't have to use my hand to assist me, however, and I considered that a vast improvement. Over all, I felt that I had bested my old time by a considerable margin.
I looked back over my shoulder, and in the early light of rising dawn I could see Lithe removing his cloak, two hand and a half swords, as well as their scabbards and belt. I wondered what he was doing. I only had to consider it for a moment, for after he had stowed his weapons and cloak in a pile he approached the balance poles. Without his cloak on I could see that his features were similar to that of many of the Knights I had met. He had the familiar fur clad arms and legs, though I noted he had small sails upon his back as well. They were not larger wings as those Ethaniel had sported, but small, muscular protuberances of flesh that looked more decorative than functional.
Lithe sprung nimbly to the first pole of the course, his clawed feet giving him perfect purchase on it. A moment later he started on a tumbling course through the poles, flipping and spinning amidst them with more grace than I had ever witnessed at even the most spectacular of traveling shows in my home city. Sometimes he would land on a hand, sometimes on a foot, but no matter how he landed he was ready to propel himself on to the next curved hold with little effort. Halfway through the course, he used his massive strength to throw himself far into the air. His sails opened up, leathery and slightly larger than they'd seemed when they had been folded on his back. He didn't flap them, or try to propel himself with them, but instead he glided down and landed on another of the polls before tucking them back behind him and continuing his mad course of somersaults and flips across the balance obstacles. They worked to slow him, but not much else. He landed on the final pole of the course after a half twist down from a single arm handstand off the position before it. Lithe stepped to the ground nonchalantly.
"I was always good at this." He explained with a sl
y grin that was infectious, or at least would have been had my face not hurt so badly when I tried to grin back. Lithe returned to the beginning of the obstacle and collected his things. I returned to the beginning of the obstacle as well, and prepared to tackle it again. There was no chance that I could come anywhere near to matching Lithe's performance, but I wanted to repeat the exercise until I could stick the final landing at the end without nearly falling. Without Malice to guide my practice, I decided I would work on the points I knew were my weakest.
I had been hard at work for nearly five hours before Malice happened by. I could immediately tell by the look her face that she was not happy that I had chosen to spend the day on the practice field despite having been given the day off. I had not seen such an angry expression on her face since before our night of shared grief. I subconsciously took a step backward, only noticing it after my foot had already moved.
"Are you attempting to make your wounds worse?" Malice snapped, the ire obvious in her voice, though I noted, with a certain amount of relief, that there was also a hint of concern straining her tones. "If you don't rest, the scarring will be worse, and you risk infecting the cuts that Merrywin has worked so hard to clean and stitch. You are irresponsible. And you," She turned her wrath on Lithe. "You should know better, Lithe. I chose you for this detail because you are level headed and reasonable. At least I thought you were, but it seems you can't even take care of one half-crippled trainee."
Lithe smiled his toothy smile. "You didn't forbid the boy's exercise, and he seemed intent upon his course." He rumbled, and seeing that his explanation had not appeased my instructor he added, "Besides, I remember when you came out to train after you were run through by the Fell Beast, still bleeding from the terrible wound that should have ended your life, you dragged yourself to this very obstacle," He indicated the balance poles, looking at it with eyes that saw through the ages. "If I recall correctly, you proceeded to force yourself across it time and time again before I finally found you where you'd collapsed in the center of it, and had to carry you back to your bed." Lithe gazed at me with his sharp, all-seeing black eyes. "This one quite reminds me of you, Malice. There is a fire in him that burns bright and hot. He has your determination and, I think, a bit of your anger - though he hides it well."