The Orphans' Promise

by Pierre Grimbert

  Corenn remained silent. Yan gathered his courage and dove in.

  “This long conversation, does it have to do with the island, or me?”

  The Mother smiled, shooting him a sidelong glance, as their walk brought them under the first trees of a thick forest.

  “Yan the Fisherman, you’re not so naïve anymore,” she said magisterially. “It has to do with you,” she added, after a moment.

  Yan felt his neck stiffen. He had suspected the answer, but was already sorry to have been right.

  Corenn drew in a long breath and began.

  “After what you saw yesterday, I don’t think you’ll find my question too odd. Yan, do you believe in the impossible?”

  “Yes, of course,” he answered without hesitation. Then he felt the need to explain his impulsive response. “I mean, I’ve seen it, haven’t I? We all have. Anyone can go around saying things, but that doesn’t prove anything. But yesterday… I was there yesterday. I saw the portal. I saw the other world. And if those things are real, then others can be too.”

  Corenn stopped and stretched as she observed the surroundings. His answer amply satisfied her.

  “Well! Like I thought, this is going to be very easy. Let’s stop here for a moment. I have something to show you.”

  Consumed with curiosity, the young Kaulien squatted in the grass still moist with dew. Corenn unfolded a cloth she had brought for this purpose, sat down on it, and rested her back against the trunk of a young lubilee tree. She lazily took a coin from her purse and held it out to the young man.

  “Place it on the ground upright, on its edge. Wherever you want, but close enough so that I can see it.”

  Yan obeyed, wondering where the Mother was going with this. If Rey had asked him to do something like this, he would have refused to play along, afraid the actor was playing another one of his jokes on him.

  “Now back up. And watch the coin closely.”

  With no idea what was going on, Yan watched the engraved, metallic disk intently. It was a completely ordinary three-queen coin from the Matriarchy, tarnished by old age. Hardly valuable enough to buy a loaf of bread.

  As he was watching it, the disk wavered, and then fell to its side. Yan immediately bent down and placed it back on its edge, and began to observe again.

  “Did you see?” Corenn asked.

  The Kaulien stared at her, confused. He hadn’t seen or understood anything at all.

  “All right. Let’s try again. Look at it more closely,” she added with a mischievous smile.

  Yan kneeled next to the coin and concentrated all of his attention on it. He didn’t see a thing.

  Then the object vibrated slightly at its base, as if touched by a breeze. Yan expected to see it fall again, but nothing happened.

  Then the coin started to turn in a slow spinning motion that accelerated, faster and faster. When the coin first began to turn, Yan thought it was just coincidence, a trick of the wind. It continued to spin, faster and faster, and Yan knew this was no accident. What he was witnessing before him was impossible. And whereas someone else might have run off screaming in fear and anger, he felt an inexplicable joy wash over him.

  He took his eyes off the coin and looked at Corenn, not understanding why he was smiling so much. Regaining some of his seriousness, he noticed the Mother looked very focused. She would not take her eyes off the coin, and Yan finally understood that Corenn was the source of this wonder. Corenn was a magician!

  He refocused on the little three-queen coin, now spinning so fast that it looked like a solid metal sphere. Then the little bead lifted into the air.

  The young man watched, mouth agape. The spinning globe froze two feet above the ground, practically right in front of his eyes. He watched it turn from every angle until he couldn’t resist the urge to wave a hand underneath it. When he did, his fingers met no resistance and the spell was in no way interrupted. The coin continued to spin.

  He finally put both hands around the coin, cupping it like a firefly. The movement slowed, and the three-queen coin gently laid to rest in his left palm. Yan opened his hands, and contemplated the coin as if he were seeing it for the first time.

  Corenn placed a hand on her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment. She suddenly seemed exhausted. She let her head rest against the tree trunk before turning to Yan with a wry smile.

  “So did you see something this time?”

  “I didn’t see a thing,” Yan said with a smirk. “Just an old coin spinning in midair, that’s all.”

  The two of them, usually so reasoned, succumbed to a fit of laughter: one that they could not justify or stop. Once they were both exhausted, they let a moment of silence go by, and listened to the songs of the forest.

  Yan looked at the coin and Corenn, from Corenn to the coin, not knowing where or when the next wonder would occur.

  “So, Yan the Fisherman,” the Mother interrupted. “Do you believe in magic?”

  “Yes,” he answered very seriously.

  “Good. Do you want to learn it?”

  Grigán couldn’t wait to get out of the tunnel. It wasn’t so much being underground that bothered him. He had experienced that heavy feeling many times before, like in the caves on Ji. No, it was more the narrowness of the tunnel. Although there was plenty of space, even in the tightest sections, for two adults to walk side by side, the warrior felt hemmed in. He was thinking about the possibility of an attack.

  In such a corridor, it would be tough for him to effectively use his four-foot-long blade. The dagger would be his best option, but he didn’t trust it one bit, thinking its use too dangerous and barely effective against several enemies at once. The bow would have been ideal if the tunnel were lighted. But the three men navigated the tunnel by torchlight alone. Any determined enemy, hiding in the shadows, would be discovered only after it was too late. They were easy targets, so Grigán walked with his shoulder against the wall.

  Moreover, he hated being led by a stranger, trusting a man who had so little reason to help them. For this tunnel wasn’t just a passage that led from Raji’s farm to Lorelia, it was one of the many veins in a genuine underground network, which must have spanned several leagues. They had already intersected six secondary tunnels, all of which had been walled off. So the route was obvious, but there was no guarantee it would be that way for the entire length of the passage.

  Grigán slipped by the donkey, which was weighed down by merchandise, to walk next to the smuggler. Raji tried to ignore him, but his worried face made his discomfort obvious.

  “How old is this tunnel?”

  Raji stared at the warrior, as if assuring himself that Grigán’s attempt at conversation wasn’t some kind of bait. Grigán’s impassive face comforted him a little.

  “I’m not sure. My grandfather used it in his time, so at least fifty years old. When I was digging my third cellar, a few years ago, I found the tip of a Rominian lance. The tunnel might date all the way back to the Epoch of the Two Empires.”

  “That would be more than eight eons,” Rey interrupted, “That’s a lot.”

  Grigán continued, “And your family has been smuggling this whole time?”

  “Since my grandfather,” Raji proudly responded, falsely assuming the warrior’s opinion. “But no one has been as successful as me!”

  “Surely one of these days you’ll get caught, it seems too easy,” Grigán answered without animosity.

  “Raji gives a portion of his profits to his collector. I’ve heard he’s very generous,” Rey chimed in.

  Raji grumbled, “Why don’t you scream it on the rooftops?”

  “Where do the other tunnels go?” Grigán asked.

  “To Lorelia, like this one, or somewhere nearby. What does it matter? Most of them are either caved in, or too well known, even by the militia. My grandfather must have dug for six years to clear out this one. I walled off all the ones that fed into it many years ago. I’ve never had any worries, before you showed up.”

 
“Someone bold and even just halfway clever could knock down one of these walls and rob your warehouse.”

  Raji raised his eyebrows. The ideas pouring out of this Grigán didn’t please him at all. He grumbled, “You can’t trust anyone.”

  Rey burst out laughing and whooped for a good moment. Grigán found it oppressive to hear such idiotic chortling in this sordid underground. He began to regret bringing the actor along.

  “Rey told me that the tunnel opens into the cellar of an inn. Is it yours?”

  “I’m not sure I want to answer any more of your questions. You can stay in my warehouse, you can come along with me against my will, but I have no obligation to make conversation with you.”

  The little man had gathered up all his courage for this tirade and mentally prepared himself to deliver a barrage of insults should Grigán touch him.

  Rey burst into a new round of hysterical laughter. These people are demented, Raji thought.

  Grigán had a furious urge to pin his blade to the foul-smelling man’s throat to find out what he wanted. He held himself back only once he considered Corenn’s wishes.

  “I just wanted to know,” he whispered with a self-restraint he didn’t know he had, “if we are going to surface in the middle of a group of brothers who will immediately rush to warn the Guild.”

  “Well, there’ll be brothers all right,” Raji joked.

  Seeing the warrior’s icy stare, he quickly added, “I mean, just my associate and his two stooges. Good people, no need to fear, master Grigán.”

  The warrior stared at the little man for a while, without saying a word.

  This idea was nothing but madness.

  In his weakened state, and wanting to express the full complexity of his emotions, Bowbaq sometimes had trouble finding the right words in the Ithare language. The others had a better command of the religious dialect than he. That had never been an issue… until today.

  Léti patiently waited for him to sift through his thoughts or search for a new turn of phrase when he got stuck on an expression. In any case, she understood perfectly what he wanted to share with her. She had felt the same thing since the Züu had surrounded her and her aunt on a dirt trail in Eastern Kaul.

  Bowbaq feared death. Or rather he feared a death by assassination, death at the hand of unknown warriors, unknown murderers whom he’d never wronged. He dreaded leaving this world in such a senseless way.

  The giant was distraught.

  “In the end, animals are more civilized than humans,” he announced, staring at the ceiling. “When they kill, it’s to nourish or defend themselves, or to protect their territory and their babies. Mir would never attack a stranger simply because I asked him to, or even in exchange for a reward. Animals have more morality.”

  “You didn’t used to think so!”

  “No,” he sighed. “The erjaks of Arkary are convinced that humans are the absolute master of all species. Because they can make things and have ideas… umm… that direct their actions…”

  “Ideals?”

  “Yes. Ideals. So I believed what they told me. But now, I think erjaks are wrong.”

  “Animals defend themselves,” Léti added with a ferocious gleam in her eyes. “They fight their enemies even if the battle is lost before it starts. I think there’s a lesson to be learned from that too.”

  Bowbaq didn’t immediately respond, letting the silence hang.

  “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “Erjaks also think that humans are superior because they can often solve their problems without using force. Maybe that’s true.”

  “But the Züu are killing us! Without hesitation! Are we supposed to just let that happen?”

  “I don’t know,” the giant repeated.

  Léti was dismayed. To her the answer was obvious.

  “Your lion Mir wouldn’t hesitate for an instant. He would take his enemy to the ground and rip his guts out. No remorse.”

  Bowbaq closed his eyes and relived that snow episode with the three corpses as vividly as if he had just left them there. He couldn’t overpower Mir the lion’s instinct, an error to which a master trainer would have never succumbed. Three men dead by his fault, without him knowing why. Three young men. His son Prad would be the same age as them in hardly ten years.

  “All right, I admit that you have to defend yourself,” he finally said. “But I don’t want to kill. I could never kill.”

  “I could,” Léti concluded with conviction. “I will. Without hesitation. And even more, I hope I have the chance to soon.”

  The conversation slipped into a long moment of awkward silence. They both understood in the future that it would be best to avoid this subject. Bowbaq decided to move on right away.

  “I can’t stop thinking about what we saw yesterday. The portal… you too?”

  Léti gave a silent nod, thinking back on the emotions she felt as she watched the miracle. First, she was frightened. Then elated. And finally sad.

  Only this last emotion survived now. The whole group had suffered an inexplicable moral ache, like a shallow and incurable cut in the smooth peacefulness of their minds.

  No one complained. No one regretted it. But no one was satisfied.

  “What do you think it is?” Léti asked. “I mean, what do you think is on the other side?”

  The giant thought for a moment before responding. This was the very subject he had wanted to talk about since the beginning of their conversation, but he was reluctant to be the first to bring it up.

  “In my clan’s… uh… beliefs, there are several legends that could explain it,” he stated, cautiously.

  “Aunt Corenn said that it might be a sort of paradise. A place where the spirits of the dead go.”

  “Uh… I was also told something like that when I was young. I hope that she’s right.”

  Léti saw something strange in her friend’s face. Something was worrying him. Something important.

  “Bowbaq, what do you think it is?”

  The giant sat up to rest his back against the wall and a grim expression came over his face. He had had more than enough of lying down. He gave Léti a penetrating stare that reached into the depths of her somber eyes. This time he didn’t have any trouble finding his words.

  “Since yesterday, I’ve had this feeling that I’d already seen the other world before. As if I knew what it was. Last night as I was asleep, I remembered that someone had described it to me once. Not an heir, a traveling Maz from Yoos who spent a season with my clan. I was still a little boy. He knew lots of stories and loved telling them. He may have invented some of them, but one of them frightened me in particular: one about demons. About the land of demons, to be exact. A place supposedly just as beautiful and peaceful as its residents powerful and cruel. A sunny valley covered in fruit trees, home to hundreds of affectionate animals, but from there the black gods cast their curses upon the world of men.

  “I’m happy that no one was able to pass through the portal,” he concluded solemnly.

  Yan fixed his gaze on Corenn for a few moments. If he hadn’t just witnessed the miracle of a coin rising in the air and spinning, he would have thought she was joking. Even now, he wasn’t sure.

  The Mother was offering to teach him magic!

  She had just proven the existence of this legendary power. Just seeing the wonder was exciting by itself. The fact that Corenn was one of those exceptional beings, capable of manipulating invisible and mysterious forces, would be an inexhaustible subject of conversation itself. Now, on top of all that, she was offering to share her knowledge. No wonder Yan was overwhelmed and couldn’t digest it all in a single morning.

  Corenn waited patiently for his response, amused by the effect her question had. Yan opened his mouth, moved his lips, but couldn’t pronounce a single word. He cleared his throat, and then settled for just a nod of his head, thereby signaling his answer: He accepted.

  “Perfect!” The Mother responded simply, as if they were just deciding on a reci
pe for the next meal. “Well, we have a lot to go over.”

  Yan fell to his seat on the still wet grass, hardly considering this inconvenience. From then on, Corenn had his complete attention. He still couldn’t believe that the Mother was really going to discuss magic with him, with the incredible intention of teaching him! He wondered to himself when the dream would end, when Corenn would confess, laughter on her lips, that this was all just a bad joke, but the dream persisted. He was almost as exhilarated as when he was in front of Ji’s grand portal.

  “I should start by warning you. I’m still uncertain that I will be able to teach you anything. People gifted with the power are very rare, and those apt enough to control it, even more so. You could well be part of the first group, or you might not possess the power at all, like the majority of people. Prepare yourself now for disappointment.”

  Yan nodded, the joy coursing through him hardly lessened. Never, in the course of his different apprenticeships, had he felt so much interest in the subject. He was already Corenn’s disciple, as sure as the sun would rise tomorrow. Out of boredom or necessity, he had been trained in ironworks, woodworking, gardening, and even fishing. He would learn magic with a passion. It was already a certainty.

  “Do you know why I am even suggesting you try?”

  Yan had not thought about it very much. His mind raced to the night on Ji and the unexplainable events on the island. An answer emerged through the fog, clear and obvious.

  “It’s what happened on the cliff. Getting Léti off that ledge was impossible. Yet, I did it. She’s still with us.” He tried to finish with some modesty.

  Corenn looked to be sizing him up and commented, “You are smart, Yan. Very smart. It took me a few days to realize that. And you have a great heart.”

  The young man’s face went red. He wasn’t used to hearing compliments. What a shame that Léti wasn’t there to hear it! And Grigán too.