Shadow (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #4): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  He wears human clothes under the cloak: riding breeches and a coarse cotton shirt. His hair is combed and the beard is trimmed down to a goatee, which only makes the skull-like shape of his head and face more prominent––and yet, his features are also strangely nondescript. Little stays with me but skin stretched tightly over that death-like skeleton, leaving no other impressions than his deep-socketed, staring eyes.

  Yellow eyes, the color of sickly urine.

  He waits until the boy has literally run out of air.

  “Nenzi,” he says.

  His voice is cold, a command.

  “Nenzi. You must be silent.”

  The boy gasps, choking on a breath that wants to become more than that.

  It is the only command his body can obey. He knows what will happen if he does not, and already, I realize, already Menlim’s voice holds more sway than his own, even in this simple thing.

  Even so, he is choking, fighting for air, his thin arms and legs tensed to their limit where they’ve got him splayed over the table. He is brown from the sun, barefoot, and to my eyes, which still see age through the lens of a human, he looks about seven years old.

  I can’t stand it. I really can’t stand it.

  But I have to.

  When the boy regains control over the sounds he is making, closing his eyes, his breath still a lunging fist in his chest, the old seer clicks at him in a rolling purr, gesturing with one hand.

  “You can save yourself, Nenzi,” he says softly.

  “No.” Tears fill the light eyes. “I can’t.”

  “You can kill this human. You can kill him as easily as swatting a fly.”

  “I can’t… Uncle, please…”

  The old seer’s eyes harden to slate. A frown touches the sculpted lips.

  “Do not beg me, nephew. Do not grovel before me like some kind of craven worm. You are an intermediary being. One of the chosen.”

  “No,” the boy gasps. He gestures ‘no’ with a shackled hand, tears in his eyes. “Mistake. It’s a mistake. It can’t be. I’m not him. I’m not Syrimne.”

  The old seer’s eyes don’t move at first.

  Then they shift from the boy’s face, returning to the human.

  “Again, Merenje,” he says, emotionless. “We will do it again. And again. Until my nephew realizes what a sacrilege he has performed with his own mouth, by refusing the honored position to which he was born. Until he realizes he has just scorned his parents, and his parents’ lives, which they sacrificed for him.”

  “No!” The boy screams, twisting his head around to try and watch the human. “No! Please! I’m not. I’m not refusing! I’m ready! I’m ready to be him!”

  “When you are done,” the old seer says. “Put him back, Merenje.”

  “No!” the boy screams. “No! Please! Please don’t!”

  I stand somewhere in the shadows, flinching at every scream.

  Even so, I know I only catch the barest taste, feeling it with him but not, watching the old seer as he turns to leave the underground room.

  I know already there is a room below that one, that a trapdoor lives in the stone below the table where the boy is chained. I know that down there is where the rats and other crawling things live, where he digs in the dark, fighting to breathe, suffocating in the dank air.

  I know the boy will be there again, his hands tied to his feet, and that they’ll leave him there, possibly for days. Possibly for longer.

  And I look up as the Sark turns at the top of the stairs, the protruding bones of his face catching the light as he watches the boy again with hard, almost reptilian eyes.

  I want to kill him. I’ve never wanted anything so much.

  But I am not really here.

  Menlim waits until the human pauses once more, until the screaming devolves back into broken gasps and softer cries.

  “I’m doing this for you, Nenzi,” he tells him, his voice almost quiet. “What I teach you can save you, my son.”

  “Please!” the boy chokes. “Please, Uncle. Please. I’m sorry––”

  “Nenzi,” he says, clicking quietly. “Nenzi, stop.”

  “Uncle, I––”

  “Just stop, Nenzi. Stop. I want you to pray with me.”

  For a moment it grows deathly silent.

  All I hear is breathing in the dim room, a room smelling of blood and charred flesh.

  The sound is mainly the boy who fights to breathe, his forehead pressed against the wood, his hands clenched in fists on either side of his face. His body is still contorted in pain, his back bent where he’s half arched off the wood, but I can tell from his face that he’s heard the old seer, that he knows he must obey him in this, too.

  Even the human pauses in his work, looking up at Menlim with a subdued look on his face, almost a reverent look.

  “Nenzi?” the old man says. “Are you speaking with your Ancestors?”

  I look at the boy, and see his eyes shut tight.

  His face is still pressed into the wood, but now his lips are moving, muttering words. I watch him, feeling a kind of despair creep over my light, a deeper nausea.

  “Remember this moment, my son,” the old Sark breathed, his voice a near caress. “Always remember who you are. Remember how much you have given to the cause. You will look back on this, and know you can withstand anything. You will know you have given everything to save your people, Nenzi. You will remember you are more than a man.” The yellow eyes glow faintly from the top of the stairs. “…You are an emissary of Light.”

  23

  THE TEACHER

  THE DREAM BREAKS off without warning, like they often do.

  I am left sick, alone in a different place, no time to adjust, no place to go in my mind to rest, to even absorb what I’ve just left. There is pain here, everywhere, and my mind is too lost to see a cause. I am the boy once more, lost inside his physical vessel, and a voice is calling to him sharply, calling his name from another part of the room.

  He jerks up his head, moving like an animal, expecting shackles to stop his movements.

  When they don’t, he moves too far, nearly falling out of his seat.

  …and laughter erupts around him. Children’s laughter.

  The other voice silences theirs.

  “Ewald!” The woman says, her voice sharp.

  With him, I try to focus on the face that called to him first.

  “Ewald! Are you listening to me?”

  He starts to use his hand to gesture, then remembers, stopping in mid-motion even as his eyes dart furtively to the giant boy crammed into a similar-sized seat two rows back. The boy with the shocking white hair and the deep-set black eyes smiles at him, the skin around his eyes crinkling faintly as he makes a kissing gesture towards the boy, tapping his temple.

  Too late, he thinks, knowing the boy will hear it. Too late, runt.

  “Ewald,” the woman says. “I asked you a question.”

  “Yes, Frau Schlossing,” he says, jerking his eyes back to the front. “I am listening.”

  “That is the final warning. You will wait for me after the class breaks.”

  Fear clenches at his abdomen. Abruptly, he has to go to the bathroom, but he can’t ask her. Nor can he tell her that he can’t stay, that they’ll be waiting for him.

  “Ewald! Did you hear me?”

  With him, I refocus on the woman standing at the old-fashioned-looking blackboard.

  He nods once he has, taking in her frustrated and perplexed stare with a glance that shifts sideways, that won’t hold hers.

  “Yes, Frau Schlossing. I will wait.”

  Still, his eyes find the tow-headed giant once more, taking in the humorous smile on his thick lips as the pressure on his bladder worsens.

  “…I need to go to the bathroom,” he blurts, speaking before he knows he meant to. “I need the toilet. Now, Frau Schlossing.”

  The other children laugh again at this, but his teacher only frowns. She seems about to refuse him, then something i
n his face appears to change her mind.

  “Go, Ewald. Be back in a reasonable time.”

  He slides off the seat before she has finished speaking, stepping over tripping feet and pushing his way past arms and fingers that poke at his sides and back.

  He sees them without seeing them, obstacles between him and his goal, the door to outside. He knows he’ll get a beating either way, no matter which way he leaves, but he doesn’t care. In a place of no freedom from hurt, the only choice he has is in what form it comes.

  He reaches the door to the hall, then the hall itself. The wooden schoolhouse is made of four rooms, arranged by age, but the outhouse is shared, and outside. He is in the final segment of corridor, looking at the back doors, nearly able to smell and taste the breeze outside––

  When a voice calls to him from directly behind him.

  “Ewald,” it says.

  He freezes in mid-step.

  “Ewald. Come here.”

  He turns before he can think about stopping himself, his nerves strung on edge, his mind bent only on escape. His hope plummets with that soft voice, even before he sees her face. He meets the eyes of the other teacher, his teacher from the previous year, when he was younger. Once he has, he can’t force himself to look away.

  She beckons him into her room.

  Her classroom is empty now. The younger children have gone for the day, those under seven and eight years, who finish their schooling early. The boy is small for his age, small even for a seer, smaller than some of those in the younger kids’ classroom, but the humans think of him as eleven now.

  Fighting himself for another few seconds, he follows her beckoning finger into the room. When the door closes behind him, the pain in his abdomen worsens.

  She walks back to the front of the classroom, moving one of the small chairs so that it sits only a few feet from the teacher’s chair, behind the desk.

  Unlike Frau Schlossing, she is young, perhaps only in her late teens or early twenties. Her long blond hair hangs braided down her back, and she wears a heavy but light-colored dress, practical, but form-fitting enough that her figure is shown in all its curves.

  She is pretty, and her legs are strong. He cannot help but look at her, his eyes taking her in almost guiltily from across the desk.

  “Ewald,” she says, looking up in puzzlement. “Come here.”

  “I am not supposed to be here,” he stammers. “Frau Schlossing––”

  “I will make sure you do not get in trouble with Frau Schlossing,” she says, smiling at him in a friendly way. Sitting in the chair behind her desk, she looks pointedly at the one she has placed so that it is sitting across from her.

  “Come here, Ewald.”

  Unable to think of a reason to refuse, he obeys the summons reluctantly.

  “Sit there,” she says, patting the other chair.

  “I cannot be here,” he says again, looking at the door.

  “I won’t hurt you, Ewald.”

  “I know, Fraulein, I just––”

  “Ewald.” Her voice becomes her teacher’s voice. “Sit down.”

  Reluctantly, he closes the gap between them, sitting in the wooden chair next to hers.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he says.

  “I know you didn’t. You’re not in trouble, Ewald. Please. Just try to relax.”

  He sits there, feeling his heart hammering in his chest as she looks at him critically. Her eyes take in the length of his body, then pause longer on his face.

  “You have a bruise,” she says after a moment, indicating the place on her own neck. “Where did you get it, Ewald?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It is a large bruise, Ewald. It looks painful.”

  “I don’t know where I got it, Miss.”

  She continues to look at him, as if waiting for him to go on. When he doesn’t, she nods, as if to herself. He watches her lips purse, a look of concentration come to her blue eyes.

  “You were limping, Ewald. When you walked in here. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you were.”

  “No. I wasn’t limping, Miss.”

  “You were.” Her voice is gentle though, understanding rather than accusatory. “It’s all right. You’re not in trouble, Ewald. You’re not.”

  He doesn’t have an answer for this, so he looks away.

  “Will you show me your back, Ewald? Under your shirt?”

  His eyes shift upwards, even as his ears catch up, as his heart hammers harder in his chest. A kind of dread takes hold of him, mixed with that blackening fear, strong enough that he can’t answer her at first. When she reaches for his shirt, he jerks back.

  “No!”

  He half-stumbles to his feet, nearly toppling the chair, then doesn’t move further. Clutching the edge of the desk, he just stands there, holding his own shirt, not quite able to run away. He has to go to the bathroom again, so badly he can’t think straight. He’s afraid suddenly that he’ll lose control, that he’ll void his bladder right in front of her.

  “Please,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry, Ewald?”

  “I have to go. I really have to go. I told Frau Schlossing I would be back… that I wouldn’t be gone too long. I need to go to the outhouse.”

  She hesitates, but as she looks at him, he doesn’t see any anger. Concern still stands out in her eyes, a concern that is almost pity, perhaps even more than pity. Moving closer, she touches his arm, and it is a reassuring touch, taken away the instant he flinches, as if to persuade him it won’t remain there if he doesn’t want it to.

  “I won’t hurt you. I promise I won’t, Ewald. I promise. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Please stop. Stop doing this…”

  “I know someone is hurting you. I know you are being hurt.”

  “You have to stop,” he says. “Please, Miss. You have to.”

  “Stop what, Ewald?”

  “Stop talking about him,” he blurts. “…please.”

  She stares at him, and for an instant, he is lost there, in her young, pretty face.

  “Who, Ewald? Who do I have to stop talking about?” She frowns, but it doesn’t feel like the frown is aimed at him. Her eyes have a flicker of charge in them now, and he knows, he can feel in her light that she knows exactly who he means.

  “Your uncle? Is that who, Ewald?” She bites her lip in anger, and it only makes her look prettier. “Did he tell you to say that? Did he tell you to threaten me? To stop asking questions about you?”

  “It’s not safe,” is all he can say. “Please. Please. Just please stop.”

  “If I help you, then he can’t hurt you anymore, Ewald.”

  “You can’t.” He shakes his head. “You can’t help me. You don’t understand.”

  She frowns at him, and for a moment he sees real grief in her eyes.

  “Ewald,” she says, her voice gentle again. “Don’t you want him to stop hurting you? Don’t you want to live with people who care for you? Who don’t do that to you?”

  Pain slivers through his light. He stares at her, and for a moment, he struggles not to touch her, not to slide his arms around her neck, even just for a moment. But the feeling worsens along with the pain, the knowledge that they might already know, that someone is probably watching their exchange, even now.

  He hears voices in the hallway as he thinks it, wonders if Gerwix has already noticed the time has been too long, that he’s been gone longer than he said. The giant boy with the white hair would be waiting for him, even if he got out on time.

  “I have to go,” he blurts.

  “Ewald. Please. Please let me help you.” She is upset, pleading with him. “It’s not right what he’s doing. You must know that. You must know it’s not right.”

  As he looks at her face, he realizes he has to do something.

  It’s too late.

  His uncle will kill her.

  He knows it without having to t
hink about the reasons why. She’s already filed complaints with the township authorities. His uncle asked him questions, asked him who she was, what she’d said to him––what he’d said to her.

  Then the boy changed grades. He managed to convince his uncle that she wouldn’t see him anymore. But they would know if she said something again. They would know that she’d seen something, that she’d said something to him.

  He can push her. He can push her into forgetting about today.

  But it won’t be enough. He’s pushed her already, three or four times, and she keeps coming back, keeps asking him the same things.

  He has to make sure they never believe her.

  He has to make her go away.

  As the thought forms, and an idea behind it, his pain worsens.

  His light whispers out before the plan has fully solidified, taking over hers.

  He acts before he can second-guess himself, knowing it may be his only chance before she says something again, before something happens to her. He uses his aleimi to push on her mind, until her face slackens, growing still.

  Keeping his light in hers, he coaxes her to relax, to lean back in her teacher’s chair. He takes over her mind, and he holds her there, waiting as he looks at the clock.

  He needs an audience.

  But the timing is right for that, too.

  Ten more minutes until the bell.

  Then eight.

  Then six.

  When it is five, he looks at her, feeling another whisper of fear.

  Her face is as smooth and expressionless as one of the cows in the pasture behind the school. Her hands sit folded neatly in her lap. She looks younger to him suddenly, not like a teacher at all, and it occurs to him again that they are roughly the same age, although she would never believe him if he told her.

  She sits in the chair like a posed doll, her blue eyes vacant as they stare off towards the door, a faint smile on her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” he tells her in German, his voice a whisper. “I’m so sorry Miss Pirna.”

  Moving closer to her, he kneels between her legs, pushing the pale blue dress up tentatively past her knees. Pain reaches him before he can think about whether he should really do this, and then he’s got her partway undressed and he’s working on her, closing his eyes as he pulls on her with his light and his mouth and tongue.