She pulled out the cloth and unraveled it to reveal a little black footprint pressed into the fibers.
“My boy’s,” she said, smiling sadly.
The foot was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, little toes no bigger than a seed.
I nodded awkwardly, not sure what to say, and handed it back.
“Has anyone ever found the son they were looking for?” Av was talking to Serin and she smiled as she swallowed her food.
“Of course. There have been many.”
“So…a lot of us come back, then?” Av looked disappointed, as though every Big Brother had been nothing but a Mother seeker all along.
“A few. Not often, but indeed there have been some. I can’t remember the last one that came. What was it?” She looked to her Sisters and asked, “Four years ago?”
“Four,” agreed Tanuk, clicking the stone tube closed and hanging it around her neck, hiding her treasure once more.
“Four,” came the familiar, snake-like voice of Farka as she threw aside the curtain and stormed into the room.
“Farka,” said Serin, nodding in a rather cold greeting.
I tensed when she looked at me. She made my whole body cold and stiff, she made me feel like a Slag Cavy, caught in the hunter’s eye.
“Boys,” said Tanuk, handing Farka a full bowl of her salty slop. “This is my eldest, Farka.”
Poor Tanuk. Stuck raising a monster like Farka. No wonder she sought her son. Any child would be better than Farka. I shuddered at the thought that she could be my Sister, but I doubted it. She was sharp and strong, a good hunter. We had nothing in common.
“Yes, many have returned and reunited with their Mothers,” said Serin. “Most don’t ever find their Mothers, of course.”
“Sad when that happens,” said Tanuk.
“What’s sad about it?” spat Farka. “They aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Quiet, Farka,” snapped her Mother.
Farka simmered in the corner and no one moved to make room for her in the circle. She sat, scooping up the slop with her fingers and glaring at the three of us as she ate.
“And they just leave?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the burn from her stare.
Serin nodded.
“So…where do they go?”
Serin just shrugged but Tanuk smiled and patted my leg. “Bigger things, my dear,” she said. “Many of them have even joined the Resistance against the Beginning.”
“Well,” said a woman cradling her lost son’s rattle, “if only to follow the first.”
Tanuk nodded and smiled. “Yes, you boys are stronger than you know. Not long ago, one of you nearly took down the entire Beginning order.” She turned her smile to me and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re so much like him….”
I couldn’t help but think of my Big Brother, Cheeks. We’d been nothing alike and everyone back home was quick to point that out. No matter how much Cheeks tried to pass on what he knew to me, I never seemed to pick it up. No one back home would have ever said I reminded them of Cheeks.
“What did he do?” I asked.
“Tragic story, really,” Tanuk sighed. “He came here. He’d just had his Leaving Day. I’d say he was a couple years older than you boys now.”
Av and I nodded, and I hoped Farka wouldn’t comment on how young we were again. Tanuk continued. “Anyway, he never did find his Mother, poor thing. But he did find love. He fell hard and fast for one of our young Sisters, and it wasn’t long before the two fled from us.”
“How come?”
“They wanted to be married. That’s something a Belpheban just does not do.”
“Why not?” asked Fiver.
Tanuk let a breath escape her nostrils. “Love is little better than a curse for our kind. Ever since the time of Belphoebe, any Belphebans who find love quickly find misery and destruction.”
I remembered the rock twin, Amid, murdered for his love of Belphoebe.
“And so it was for our Sister in this case. Since the Belphebans do not allow marriage, the two went looking for a people who would. Unfortunately, all they found were the Beginners.”
“Stupid girl,” hissed the woman with the rattle.
“They were quickly wed and embraced by their society, marking them with the brand that marks all Beginners.” Tanuk pointed at her neck where it joins to the shoulder. Just where Blaze’s had been. “The mark of Ardigund. And the two lovers, so skilled and so smart—they were descendants of Belphebans, after all—climbed the ranks of the Beginning order rather quickly, too quickly. Both became the pride of Krepin’s armies. Our Sister, she was utterly seduced by the teachings of the Beginning, and the words of Aju Krepin.”
My stomach twisted at the sound of the name, the memory of his icy eyes flashing across my mind.
“But the boy, he remained skeptical…especially when their baby came.”
I felt Av shift beside me and I knew he’d been just as startled as me. The idea of a Brother with a baby was not one that had entered our heads before, and it was a shocking thought.
“Every lesson preached by the Beginning made him worry more and more, and he didn’t like the Aju’s strange interest in his child. The Aju kept the new family very close.”
“Why?”
Tanuk looked at me, surprise on her face, and I felt my cheeks get hot.
“Because,” she told me, “the baby was Ikkuman and Belpheban.”
Av’s brow was knotted, and he looked to me but I was just as confused.
“Why should that matter?” I asked.
“My dear boy, the Sacred Six! The baby was a pure son of Belphoebe. Krepin believed some nonsense that he could somehow restore the powers of Ardigund.”
I could still see the water in my mind, the way it moved away from his feet as he walked towards me, like the water itself was afraid to be too close to him. How much power did the man have?
A popping noise brought my attention to Av, who was nervously cracking his knuckles beside me.
Fiver was mesmerized. “So what happened?”
“Well, naturally the young Ikkuma was very disturbed by the Aju’s attention. But the Mother, she was devoted, mind, body, and soul, and so he stayed, if only to keep her happy. When Krepin eyed the couple’s son to become the next of the Ajus, the Ikkuma boy refused to hand his child over.”
“How come?” asked Av.
“Because it meant the child would be Krepin’s. The couple would lose the baby forever.”
There was a bad taste on my tongue, and I didn’t think it was the food.
“The Beginners mark all their leaders with a mark to the forehead; it is a huge honor among their people. But when Krepin went to place it on the forehead of his child, the Ikkuma boy refused. Naturally, Krepin was furious, and so he set his Gorpoks upon the young parents. His loyal priests surrounded the couple’s modest home, barring them from leaving, and recited the incantations from the ancient teachings of the Ajus. Day and night, Krepin’s Gorpoks spoke words of poison, invading their dreams, until the two found themselves on the edge of madness. Their minds had gone queer from the assault of the Ajus, and the girl found herself believing that her son belonged to Krepin.
“The Ikkuma begged his wife to run away with him but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d fallen under the spell of Krepin’s Gorpoks, honored that her baby had been chosen, poor brainwashed girl she was. One night, while the Ikkuma slept, the Gorpoks’ whispers overcame his wife and she took the child, disappearing into the night. She followed the voices to Krepin.”
“Did Krepin take the baby?” asked Fiver. He was hanging on Tanuk’s every word.
She shook her head and breathed a heavy sigh. “It was the river that took the baby in the end, and the Mother. When they tried to cross to the High Temple, they were swept away and lost over the falls. You can imagine her husband was furious and grieving. He wanted to destroy Krepin, but storming the Beginners’ High Temple and wringing the devil’s neck wasn’t the most practic
al solution.”
Why in the name of Rawley not? I thought. Krepin had certainly earned it.
“So he did the one thing that could hurt Krepin the most. He stayed.”
The three of us raised an eyebrow. This was not the violent revenge we were quietly hoping for.
“He stayed and climbed the ranks of Krepin’s armies, pouring his efforts into the Holy War, proving himself as a soldier. When Krepin planned to attack the city of Norale Heights, it was time for the grieving father to take his revenge. Norale Heights is a city of millions. To take them by surprise would devastate Norale and choke the surrounding lands with Krepin’s power…if they were surprised.”
Tanuk gave a mischievous smile and Farka scoffed. “Get on with it, Mum.”
“They weren’t surprised?” asked Fiver, barely containing his excitement.
“Certainly not. Not after our hero turned over every detail of the attack to the armies of Norale Heights. They were ready for Krepin’s troops, and the result was devastating to Krepin’s efforts. His army was destroyed and he was forced to retreat to the Baublenotts to rebuild his forces. The Beginners’ Holy War has suffered ever since, and the Resistance has had the chance to double in size.”
“Did Krepin ever find out who ratted on him?”
“He did,” Tanuk said, nodding. “He imprisoned the boy in the bowels of that hideous High Temple, and scratched out his mark so he would be known to all Beginners as a traitor. Krepin left him to die down there. But his soldiers who loved him for the warrior he was snuck into the High Temple and secretly freed him. Furious, Krepin ordered his Tunrar to devote themselves to hunting the man down, demanding his capture.”
“Have they caught him?” Av asked.
“Not to this day, at least that I know of anyway. It’s been so long since we’ve heard news of Blaze.”
My stomach leaped into my throat and Fiver began to choke on his own spit.
Serin smacked him on the back to dislodge the surprise that had caught in his throat, while Tanuk gripped my wrist and looked at me, concerned.
“Dear boy, are you all right? You look ghostly pale.”
All I could manage was a weak nod as my mind reeled from all the images connecting in my mind. I heard his mumbling that first night, echoing in my memory: Not my baby, end to the Beginning. The mark on his neck, different from Cubby’s, a line running through the whole of it. It marked him as a traitor.
“That mark,” I said, my voice faltering, “the one the men in Fendar Sticks wore…”
“It’s the symbol for the entire Resistance,” said Tanuk proudly. “To mark their allegiance with our brave Ikkuma boy.”
I leaned forward, doubled over, as I realized the magnitude of what I’d done, of what Blaze had done, of what he’d risked by helping me.
I felt Tanuk’s hand on my back. “Child, are you ill?”
“He’s fine,” assured Av. “All this traveling has finally caught up with him, I think.” He laughed nervously but Tanuk didn’t look convinced. Me, I was too devastated to care about putting in a good performance. I’d sold Blaze out to the world’s biggest villain. Blaze, the hero of the Resistance, nearly destroyed by the Ikkuma boy whom history would name Useless.
NINE
After Tanuk had brought out a large gourd filled to the brim with what they called squash wine, and Serin had helped herself to three mugs full, she was more than willing to let us head back to Lussit.
“Certainly, certainly!” she slurred as she held out her mug to Tanuk for a refill. “Off to bed with you, boys. Try again in the morning, eh? Plenty more sad Mothers where these wenches came from!”
Tanuk smacked her playfully and they both broke into a fit of laughter. Whatever was in it, that squash wine made the stone-cold Serin a much happier person.
The three of us walked towards Lussit’s cave in silence, trying to sort out our thoughts and fight sleep at the same time. Dawn would come soon, and my mission was nowhere close to being complete.
“Blaze,” said Fiver. “I can’t believe it.”
“I should have never given his name in the Temple,” I said, desperately trying to hold off the guilt that threatened to topple over the stack of worries and concerns I’d built up since we left the Pit.
“All right,” said Fiver, stopping in his tracks. “Here’s what we do: see that outcrop of rocks down a bit from Tanuk’s? We camp out there for now and when Serin leaves we take her by surprise and finish this. We get out of this place tonight.”
“Are you insane?” I whispered. “Keep your voice down, someone could hear you.”
“There’s no one around! Let’s quit dragging our heels and do what we came here to do.”
I shook my head and tried to think of something to say. What were we here to do? After Tanuk’s story, I was more frightened of Krepin than ever. The thought of doing what he wanted me to do, of killing Serin, of killing anyone, was making me sick to my stomach. My whole body shivered as the feel of driving a dagger through her chest crept into my mind.
“We can’t go yet,” whispered Av. His eyes were puffy again, hollow and tired from too much stress. “I have to know if this Sister thing is true.”
“It’s not,” said Fiver.
“I think it is.” He was so quiet, I could barely hear him, like he hadn’t wanted to admit it out loud.
“Why?”
He heaved a heavy sigh, like he knew we wouldn’t understand. He shrugged. “When she held my arm, I just…I knew before she told me.”
“What do you mean, Av?” I asked.
He stopped, his eyes unfocused, too many thoughts flying around in his head. “It was like…like the rocks and ice.” He sighed again, as if no one was with him. “It felt like the dream about my Mother.”
On instinct, I glanced quickly at Fiver. Av only ever talked about his dream to me, the dream about his Mother. It was our secret and I’d promised I’d never tell anyone. Fiver would have been the last person I’d ever let know about it. He’d make sure the whole Pit thought Av was a Mother seeker as soon as he found out.
“I’m starting to think I wasn’t seeing my Mother,” he said.
“Your what?” said Fiver.
“I think…” His eyes met mine and they were wet. He was exhausted, overwhelmed, and I put my hand on the back of his neck and squeezed.
“You think what?”
“I think I was seeing Lussit.”
Fiver scoffed and kicked the dirt. I believed him, though, after everything he’d said, about his dreams, I had to believe him. A part of me felt that twinge of jealousy, a dark, evil part of me hating that Av, special and talented as he was, might also have some gift in the way his Sister did.
“Av’s right,” I said, wishing away the swelling and redness around Av’s exhausted eyes. Av wouldn’t sleep until he knew the truth about her. “We can’t do it yet.”
“Ah, come on, Urgs!” growled Fiver, doing his best to keep his voice down. “Whatever happened to ‘No time to eat! No time to rest!’ Remember Cubby? Huh? Remember him?”
A familiar lump began to swell in my throat. Of course I remembered Cubby.
“I can’t save Wasted now. He’s gone. But if I could”—he bit his bottom lip, fighting through the pain of saying his Little Brother’s name—“I’d slit Serin’s throat right here right now and get back to him as fast as possible. That’s what Krepin wants you to do. That’s what you have to do.”
“What Krepin wants…,” I repeated.
“Yes!” said Fiver. “What he wants, you have to do!”
“Weren’t you listening, Fiver? What makes you think a man like that is going to keep his word?”
“Yeah, I was listening. It was epic. Like Rawley battles his Mother. It’s big. Get it? It’s so much bigger than us, Urgle. What’s one little boy to a man like Krepin? Why wouldn’t he keep his word?”
I didn’t know. Tanuk’s story was changing so much of what I thought.
“Urgle,” said Fiver, “what
other choice do you think there is?”
I let the cold air fill my lungs until it hurt, and nodded. There was no other choice.
“What about me?” said Av.
“What about you?” Fiver grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him gently until Av looked up from the ground. “You don’t know for sure. I know what you said, but let’s get serious. There’s no way she knows for sure, and even if she is…you were fine without a Sister before. You’ll be fine after.”
Av, who looked unconvinced, nodded sadly. We were here for one reason: Cubby. Nothing else mattered.
“We’ll do it tonight,” I agreed. “Back to Krepin by morning.”
“Bad luck, little boys,” said Farka’s serpentine voice from somewhere in the shadows.
Before I had a second to register the direction of the voice, she swung a blade at my feet and I jumped back, stumbling to the ground.
Her foot sailed over me and she kicked Fiver in the throat.
Saved by his speed, Av ducked and rolled just in time to miss another swipe of her blade, which sparkled menacingly in the moonlight.
Farka screamed in frustration, and I heard interested voices stirring from nearby hearths. It wouldn’t take long for them to come out and catch a glimpse of the commotion. This was it: us or Farka. Cubby or Farka.
I sprang to my feet and saw the shadows: a tall leggy Farka moving to take out Av. He dodged her blade, but not the swift leg that followed, and her foot connected with his chest, throwing him to the ground.
“Ikkuma spies!” she hissed as she brought down her blade to finish Av. He rolled and she missed, but only just.
Fiver coughed and gasped on the ground, completely immobilized while the voices rose around us.
Farka growled and kicked Av, knocking him down before he could get up.
We couldn’t be caught.
I threw myself onto Farka, grabbing a fistful of her hair and wrenching her whole head back.
She roared and reached back to claw me, her long nails digging into my cheeks.
Av seized the moment and threw a punch to her stomach, winding her, but she struggled all the more. Another punch from Av, and she only got angrier, flipping me over her back and throwing me into him.
The Boys of Fire and Ash Page 19