Ascendant

by Craig Alanson

  "Am I a jinx?" Koren asked, knowing his father would tell him the plain truth whether he wanted to or not. Bodric was that way.

  "Koren, I don't rightly know." Bodric said after a pause. "Strange things seem to happen when you're around, that's the truth, I can't deny it." When the mill's waterwheel broke because it stopped for no reason, Bodric had been as frightened as the miller. "If you're a jinx sometimes, well, you've been good luck, too, good luck for us, for sure. And you nursed old mister Redding’s cow back to health, when he'd given up on it, right? Don't know what you did, but that old cow was back up, and giving milk in a fortnight."

  Koren nodded. He had helped out when old mister Redding needed an extra hand on his farm, and when Redding's only cow had fallen down in her stall, glassy-eyed and moaning, Koren had convinced the man to let him try saving the animal. The poor old cow had lain on her side, muscles twitching, burning up with fever, and taking neither food nor water. Koren had stayed there for two days and nights, stroking the animal, and the twitching stopped, and the moaning went away, and when he spooned sugared water into the cow's mouth, it licked it up. If Koren left the cow's side, it moaned in pain, so he stayed right there, keeping a hand touching its hide, and draping an arm over the cow when he caught a few minutes of sleep. Mister Redding had been so grateful, he had given that cow's next calf to Koren.

  Koren had always been especially good with animals. The Bladewell's chickens laid more and bigger eggs, their cows gave more milk, their sheep's wool was thick and grew quickly. Jealous neighbors grumbled that the soil under the Bladewell's farm was very rich, so of course their crops and animals were healthy and productive. Bodric's back, which ached from the hard labor of picking stones out of the soil, and spreading manure as fertilizer, would deny the soil there was anything special before he bought the land. "You weren't around when that hailstorm wiped out a whole field of the Pritchert's wheat, that weren't no jinx. Nor the flood that knocked supports from under the bridge, nor the forest fire a couple years back that sent sparks onto the roof of the Golden Trout and almost burnt the place to the ground. I didn't hear old sour face Pricella Pettifogger mention that, when she came to complain about you, now did she?" Bodric said with a wink.

  Koren couldn't help a quick grin.

  "Don't you worry on what people think about you, Koren. If you're a jinx, well, there must be a lot of jinxes around, seeing as how so many bad things happen. You hold your head up, and don't get to feeling bad about yourself. It don't do any good to be sitting around moping about how bad you got it in life, there's always somebody got it worse." Bodric held a perfectly ripe plum up to his nose and inhaled the sweet scent. "Let's get these back to your mother, she'll be well pleased."

  A couple days later, in the afternoon, the family stopped outside of a village. Koren would wait in the woods, while his parents went into the town to buy supplies, and get directions. Koren was ashamed to see his own parents considered that their son was a jinx, they wanted to keep him away from any possible trouble by keeping him out of towns along the way. “It’s not that we think you’re going to jinx anything, Koren,” his father said while he avoided looking his son in the eye, “but, well, you see, we can’t afford to have any incidents, while we’re on the road.” They would be back before dark, they assured Koren, he was to stay in the woods and out of sight. And out of trouble.

  Koren watched from the woods as the wagon rolled out of sight down the road, then he kept himself busy picking an entire hat full of wild berries. His mother would be pleased to have fresh berries when she returned. Having stripped the raspberry bushes of ripe fruit, he began looking for wild roots, the way his father taught him. He found and dug up a fair-sized pile of wild carrots when he noticed it was growing dark, and his parents hadn’t returned. Koren carefully crept back to the road, and watched for his parents, until the light faded in the western sky, and stars began to twinkle. When it grew so dark he could barely see his hand in front of his face, he made his way back to the clearing where he had left his pack, and soon got a fire going. When his parents returned, they would see his fire from the road.

  The stars winked out one by one as the sky filled with clouds, and rain began to fall. Koren rigged up a tarp to sit under, and tended to the fire as big heavy raindrops popped and hissed when they fell onto the fire. He sat up long into the night, jumping at every sound in the forest around him. Finally, he could not keep his eyes open, and he fell asleep under the tarp. In the morning, the fire was cold, and there was still no sign of his parents. Mindful of his parents’ warning to keep off the road, Koren walked in the woods parallel to the road, until he came over the crest of a small hill, and could see the town stretched out in the valley below. It looked much like Crebb’s Ford; a few buildings clustered together along a road near a river, surrounded by farm fields. Koren noticed that some of the buildings had brightly-colored flags, and Koren realized with a start that the next day was the Midsummer’s Day celebration. There was no sign of his parent’s wagon. The rain had stopped and the sun came out, which lifted Koren’s dark spirits. After sitting on a log and pondering what to do for a full hour, Koren stashed his pack behind a tree, and made his way across a field into the town. Pushing aside a tangle of pricker bushes, he stepped out onto the road.

  The keeper of the town’s inn wiped his flour-covered hands on his apron, and stepped out the side door of the inn, to where he had several pies cooling on a window ledge. Anticipating a crowd in town for the Midsummer’s Day festival, he had baked twice as many pies as usual, and carefully selected the fruit to put into each pie. The innkeeper was, then, outraged to see one of his pies was missing! Missing! Gone! Stolen! And he knew who had stolen his precious sweets, there was a trouble-making group of boys around the village, boys who had not enough chores to keep them busy around their farms. With a bellow of rage, the innkeeper flung open the gate of the inn’s yard, and charged out into the road. The first person he saw was a boy with dark curly hair, standing in the road with his back to the inn.

  Koren spun around in alarm when the innkeeper shouted at him. “You there, boy! Don’t you run away from me!” The innkeeper shouted, and of course what Koren did was run, run fast as he could. The innkeeper shouted for people to stop the boy, Koren ducked when a man tried to grab him, ducked again, rolled on the ground, scurried to his feet, and plunged through the pricker bushes and off the road. He pelted his way across the field, and had gone only a few strides, when he stumbled into a brush-choked ditch he hadn’t seen, stumbled and fell into the muddy bottom of the ditch. Men crashed through the bushes, cursing as thorns tore at their skin and clothing.

  Koren lay still in the ditch, hidden under bushes. He could see men’s boots at the edge of the ditch, and he recognized the innkeeper’s voice. “Where did that boy get to?”

  “I can’t see him.” Another man said. “This is far enough for me. Look, I’ve ruined this shirt, my wife won’t be pleased.”

  ”We have to catch that boy!” The innkeeper said. “We have to nip this in the bud, I tell you. If we let that sort into our town-“

  “Yes, yes,” said another man impatiently. “Nip it in the bud, that’s what you always say. Well, we’ve chased him away.”

  The men grumbled as they carefully made their way back through the bushes, until only the innkeeper’s boots were visible. “I’ll thrash you if I ever catch you, boy!” The innkeeper shouted as he shook his fist at the field. “Decent folk don’t want your kind around. You stay out of our town, you hear me? Nothing but trouble, you are! Nobody wants you around.” Huffing and puffing from shouting, the innkeeper stood still for a long minute, before crashing through the bushes back onto the road.

  Koren lay still, barely breathing, in the ditch, until he was sure the men had gone. Slowly, he crawled through the mud along the bottom of the ditch, climbing out of the ditch only when he reached the edge of the field. Keeping low in the woods, he made his way back up to retrieve his pack, and sat on the log again t
o decide what to do next.

  His hands were shaking with shock. He had never been to, whatever this village was called. Only been out of Crebbs Ford a dozen times in his life, and never so far. Yet, somehow, even here, in this village, several long days' journey from Crebb’s Ford, people knew about the awful jinx Koren Bladewell! Knew that Koren Bladewell was trouble, a jinx, and wanted to keep him out of their town. They chased him out of town, before he could even say hello. Had the Baron sent word, around Crickdon county, to warn people about Koren, perhaps all of Winterthur province was on the lookout for Koren the Jinx. There would be no place he could go. No town that would not have heard of him by the time he got there, or would hear about him shortly after he arrived. The boy who causes trouble. Good riddance to him.

  Koren sat on the log until the sun was directly above him, and sliding down toward the western horizon. He still needed to find his parents. Perhaps he should go back to where they left him? Yes, that was the best idea. He climbed down the hill and cautiously walked out onto the road, the town was around a curve, unseen behind him. Koren trudged miserably down the road, past several farms. No one noticed the lonely boy passing by, until he came upon another boy, around his age, sitting on a stump, eating what looked like a blueberry pie. Koren’s stomach grumbled with hunger, he hadn’t had anything to eat since noon the day before. “Hey,” said the boy, “what cha doin?”

  “Nothing.” Koren said defensively. “That looks like a good pie.”

  “It is, and it’s mine.” The boy hugged the half-eaten, stolen pie to his chest. “My ma made it for me.” He lied as he ate another mouthful of stolen pie, the blueberry juice running down his chin. “I’m Roddy. You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No. Did you see a wagon come into town, yesterday afternoon?” Koren asked hopefully. This boy, apparently, didn’t know what a terrible menace Koren was.

  “Big man, red hair, and a lady with straight dark hair? Yeah, they came by yesterday, then back this way again. What’s it to you?”

  “When did they come back, out of town?” Koren asked excitedly.

  Roddy squinted warily. “An hour or so before dark. Why?”

  “But, but I didn’t see them on the road.” Koren sputtered.

  Roddy shrugged. “There’s a fork in the road, half a mile up thataway, maybe they went the other way last night.”

  “But, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t leave me.” Koren’s head spun, he leaned against a fencepost.

  Roddy’s eyes opened wide. When he caused more than the usual amount of trouble around the village, his parents sometimes threatened to toss him out of the house. Until he met Koren, it never occurred to Roddy that some parents actually did abandon their children. “Your ma and pa? They just up and leave you here?’

  “I don’t,” Koren had trouble breathing, “I don’t know. They couldn’t. They wouldn’t do that. Not my parents.”

  “Maybe,” Roddy said fearfully, with a guilty glance at the stolen pie. “You cause them a lot of trouble, or something?”

  “No.” Koren grumbled, his head spinning. “Maybe. Yes."

  “Huh.” Suddenly, Roddy didn’t feel like eating the other half of the pie. He shouldn’t have stolen it from the innkeeper. “Hey, do you want the rest of this pie?” Giving the pie to a hungry person would, in Roddy’s mind, make up for having stolen it in the first place.

  Roddy held the pie out, and Koren took it without looking at it. “Why would they leave me here?”

  “You got folks ‘round Tinsdale? That’s our town.”

  “No, we’re from-“ Koren decided not to tell Roddy where he was from, lest the boy figure out who Koren was, and tell his parents.

  “Hey, listen, maybe your folks-“ Roddy paused as a man’s voice drifted across the field. “Uh-oh, that’s my pa, I’m supposed to be doing chores. You, hey, good luck to you. And don’t tell nobody who gave you the pie.” Roddy hopped down off the stump and ran across the field, determined now to do his chores the way his pa wanted.

  Koren looked at the pie in his hands, looked at the lonely road stretched out in front of him, and began walking, eating the pie as he went along, without enjoying or even tasting it. When he arrived at the fork in the road, he saw the previous night’s rain had washed away any trace of wagon tracks. Feeling completely miserable, Koren sat with his back to the signpost, and used a handful of grass to wipe the pie plate clean. His parents would not have abandoned him, even if he had caused them so much trouble that they had been chased out of their home. There must be some kind of mistake.

  Yes, that was it, a mistake, a misunderstanding. Why, even now, his parents were probably searching the woods where he was supposed to be waiting!

  With hope renewed, Koren propped the pie plate up against the signpost, and hurried back down the road, headed for the clearing where he had spent the wet, lonely night. He had run no more than a quarter of a mile when he saw a tall merchant’s carriage, accompanied by three armed guards on horseback. “Clear the road, boy!” The driver shouted, and Koren stumbled off the side of the road. Koren took off his hat. “Please, sir, have you seen a wagon, with a man and a woman, on this road?”

  “No,” replied the driver, “not a soul since the morning, not on this road.”

  One of the guards pulled his horse to a stop next to Koren. “You looking for someone, boy?” The guard asked in a low voice. Koren noticed the guard had his hand on his sword, and was looking warily into the woods even as he spoke.

  “Yes, sir, my parents, sir.”

  “Guard! Leave that stupid boy to himself and get back to your post!” The merchant shouted as he leaned out the window of the closed carriage. “I don’t pay you to talk to strange brats on the road.”

  The guard looked at Koren, shrugged, and tossed him a pair of copper coins. “Sorry. Good luck to you, boy.”

  The guard spurred his horse onward to catch up with the carriage, and then Koren was alone again. He sat down on the side of the road, staring at the two copper coins.

  It was growing dark by the time Koren picked himself up off the road. His parents had indeed abandoned him, just as Roddy said. He was too much trouble to bother with. The last straw, for his parents, must have been when they discovered that even people in the distant village of Tinsdale knew about their son about Koren the jinx, and wanted to keep him away. As long as Koren was with them, his parents could not have any sort of decent life anywhere in the whole province, perhaps even the kingdom, they must have realized. And so, on their way out of Tinsdale, they had turned the wagon south, instead of coming back for their trouble-causing son.

  It was all his fault, Koren knew. If only he could find his parents again, he would promise not to cause any trouble ever again. If only he could find them.

  But how? He didn’t know where his mother’s relative lived. And he needed to stay out of towns, anyway. He needed to go back to the fork in the road, take the turn his parents had made, and hope to catch up to them. If he walked steadily, without taking time to sleep, he could catch up to his parents, he knew he could! Koren brushed some of the dirt off his pants, wiped a tear out of his eye, and set off the way he had come, never looking back.

  The decision to follow the fork in the road, instead of going back to the clearing in the woods where his parents had told him to wait, made all the difference in the rest of Koren’s life. If he had continued down the road another mile, he may have noticed ruts gouged into the embankment, where someone had pushed a wagon off the road. He may have followed the faint tracks, mostly washed away by the rain, and found the wagon, in the woods, covered under a pile of brush. He may have seen bandits’ arrows stuck in the side of the wagon. He may have noticed angry red traces of blood on the side of the wagon, the wagon which now lay empty, stripped of everything valuable.

  Koren never saw the tracks, never saw the wagon. He reached the fork in the road as night fell, screwed up his courage, and walked forward in the darkness, hopelessly hoping to catch up to t
he wagon.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Thirteen (and nearly a quarter) year old Ariana Trehayme rummaged through the wardrobe cabinet, pushing aside jackets, skirts, robes, and selected a white dress. She bit her lip as she studied the dress, then put it back. It was nice, but too simple. Three other white dresses also failed her inspection, all either too plain or too fancy, until she found a dress with half-length sleeves, just enough lace, and beads that sparkled like tiny diamonds. Ariana held the dress up in front of her, and faced the mirror. She thought the sparkling beads nicely set off her rather pale green eyes. The curls of her auburn hair fell around her shoulders and over her eyes, she tossed her head to get the hair out of the way.

  “Now what are you doing here, young lady?” Asked an older woman as she swept into Ariana’s bed chambers, which was a suite of rooms which took up one whole wing of Duke Yarron’s castle. Although the duke’s wife, who usually occupied these bed chambers, probably thought the rooms were opulent, the cold gray stone and white plaster walls of the old castle were rather dreary compared to the Trehayme’s royal palace in Linden, where crown princess Ariana lived. The woman was a maid named Nurelka, and she had an armful of clothes weighing her down. Older, to young Ariana, meant that Nurelka was the ripe old age of thirty seven, which clearly was impossibly, unimaginably ancient. Nurelka’s own children were now grown and living on their own, but the woman had been a nanny, and now a maid, to Ariana since she was a baby. Nurelka had short black hair, a kind, roundish face, and a perpetually worried expression when she was around Ariana.

  “Trying on gowns,” Ariana said with a slight frown as she twirled in front of the mirror, making her cascading curls of hair swing around, “the duchess brought a whole trunkful of clothes in for me yesterday. Mother wants me to dress up for this stupid dinner tonight. I'm going to be queen, and command an army, I should be talking maps and defense strategy with Yarron's captains, not attending boring dinners.”