“Merciful God,” Moreen whispered. Birch winced at the tone in her voice. He started to lower his head, but her cool fingers caught his face and lifted his chin to face her.
“Birch, your skin,” she said, her voice trembling. With one fingertip, she traced a line from Birch’s eye down to his chin, and Birch finally felt a pulsating ache in the flesh on his face. He knew what it was she was seeing, even before she told him.
“Your face is burned,” Moreen said in terrified awe, “and your tears… they were on fire.”
As though her words were a signal, Birch’s face began to burn and itch.
“Mirror,” he said in strangled tones. He followed her gesture toward a narrow mirror on the wall that hadn’t been there all those years before, when Birch had last been in the inn. He stumbled to the looking glass, then stopped short. He suddenly realized he was afraid of what he might see.
With an effort of will, Birch breathed deep and took hold of himself, forcing calm on overwrought nerves. With a steadying breath, Birch stepped in front of the mirror and clenched his teeth.
From each eye ran a series of small trails etched in his flesh by a fiery red streak. The ends of the trails showed the worst burns, where the remnants of his tears had stopped; sinking slowly into his face, all but unnoticed through his consuming grief.
He covered his face with his hands and murmured a healing prayer, and was relieved to see no trace of the burns when he looked back at his reflection. His healing ability was still strong enough for minor burns, it seemed.
With a final, wide-eyed glance at his face, Birch turned back and sat with Moreen. She stared at him worriedly until Birch smiled softly and told her not to worry.
“But your eyes, Birch,” she said, hesitating. “H… How? What’s wrong with them?”
“I wish I could tell you,” he said honestly. “I didn’t know about them until a Green paladin pointed it out to me during my recovery. He said they’ve been like this since I first came back.”
In truth, the paladins were initially concerned that Birch might be possessed and had even considered performing an exorcism. Demonic possession was exceedingly rare and the exorcism ritual involved considerable pain for the suspected host, so Birch was just as glad his brother paladins had opted not to proceed with the rite.
Before Moreen could ask, Birch related what of his story he could remember, leaving virtually nothing out. He didn’t mention his recent difficulties in healing, nor did he tell her about some of the more disturbing flashes of memory that had recently come to him in his dreams.
At least Birch assumed they were memories; they could very well have been nightmares. Word games with an unseen presence and torture sessions with the King of Hell would normally be dismissed by any sane person as nothing more than the fantasy of dreams. But Birch couldn’t disregard them so casually, since one might hold the key to unlocking his memory.
That was assuming Birch wanted his memories returned to him. Perhaps it was his mind acting automatically to protect him from the worst of the horrors he’d endured. Birch had heard of men who had unknowingly blocked traumatic experiences from their memories, creating inexplicable patterns of behavior when they were faced with something that reminded them of their buried experiences. In that case, maybe it was safer for Birch to remain ignorant of what was behind the black veils in his mind.
It was maddening to think about, because Birch couldn’t know whether he wanted to remember them unless he knew what it was he had forgotten, and the only way to make that decision was to remember it all. Birch chased these thoughts like a dog after its tail, exhausting himself and coming no closer to a resolution than he’d been before.
Birch continued his tale, such as it was, up through his journey to see his brother and nephew, and their subsequent flight from the city. He outlined their plans to return to Nocka, which would hopefully keep Danner out of harm’s way until the Coalition’s interest in him waned.
To Birch’s mind, he kept talking for several hours. In reality, his head drooped and he fell asleep shortly after telling Moreen their plans to move on.
Moreen gently lifted his forehead from the table and cradled his head on his outturned elbow and shoulder. She stood and admired her handiwork, such as it was, then sighed at the look of troubled peace on his face.
Moreen had spent more nights than she could remember setting him in just such a position, his body having failed him long before his will. Birch drove himself mercilessly, and often it had been all Moreen could do to keep him from burning himself out during his early years as a paladin. Back when he…
She banished the thought with a wave of her hand and a shake of her head. As Moreen turned away, she murmured, “I may have waited, but eleven years is a long time and I’ve changed, Birch. I suspect we both have. The past is in the past, and that’s where it will stay.”
It wasn’t until she was across the room that she paused.
“Unless you bring it to the present,” she said, unable to keep a note of hope from her voice.
Chapter 13
How did I survive my captivity? I woke up each day and I breathed in and out until finally I didn’t have to remind myself to breathe anymore. Each morning was another contest, each evening another victory.
- Birch de’Valderat,
“Memoirs” (1013 AM)
- 1 -
Danner woke the next morning with a throbbing headache and an acute case of disorientation.
The warmth and softness of his bed put him back in his room in Faldergash’s home, and he fully expected the gnome to walk into the room any moment. Fal would complain about not having enough of this ingredient or that part, and did Danner know where he had put his large wrench? Danner cracked his eye to look toward the door, trying to wake up before the gnome appeared.
As his eye fell on the sleeping form of Maran, the last week of disaster and traveling came back to him in a rush. The pleasant moment of calm fled as swiftly as it had come, leaving Danner to anguish in its wake. He clenched his eyes against a sudden mental image of the gnome, bright eyes peering over his bulbous nose as he stared, fixated by some invention that would inevitably singe his eyebrows or bring down part of the roof. Or both.
“San, Fal, I’m sorry,” Danner whispered hoarsely. “I’m so sorry.”
Danner wept silently for a moment, mourning his lost friend. He muffled his sniffles and tears in his pillow, not wanting to disturb Maran. When his eyes had dried, Danner lifted his reddened face and suddenly realized he was hungry.
With a breath that was more a shudder of his frame, Danner twisted himself out of bed. He instinctively kept his footsteps light so as not to awaken the elf. Danner padded to his clothes and slipped into his trousers as silently as possible. He cast a final glance at Maran to make sure he was still sleeping, then slipped from the room, shirt in hand.
Unnoticed, Maran’s eyes cracked open, and he watched the retreating image of Danner’s back as he left the room.
- 2 -
Alicia stepped back into the kitchen and flopped onto the bench at the break table. She leaned back and stretched on the wooden plank, her trouser-clad legs lifting into the air as she eased off her tired feet.
“By San, I’m exhausted,” she huffed, putting more tiredness in her voice than she really felt. Brit peered at her from across the table, little more than his eyes visible from Alicia’s low vantage. Looking under the table, she had an excellent view of his kneecaps, though.
“It be too early in the mornin’ for ye to be so tired, lass,” Brit rumbled softly. “What’s got ye in a tizzer?”
Alicia sighed, blowing strands of her chestnut hair away from her mouth.
“Mo and that man from last night, Birch,” she said finally. She sat up and twisted to sit normally on the bench. “He fell asleep on the table last night, and Mo said to leave him there. I figured she knew her friend best, so I didn’t disturb him.” Alicia frowned. “I was worried he might take chill when the fire die
d down, so I went out a little later to bring him a blanket.”
“Yer a thoughtful lass,” Brit said, nodding, “to be thinkin’ of a stranger like that. I’m sure he was grateful.”
“He wasn’t there, Brit,” Alicia said, spreading her hands. “And then when I…” she stopped, looking guilty.
“When ye went t’ check on Mo for the night? Is that what ye were goin’ t’ say?” Brit laughed at the chagrined look on her face. “Donna worry, lassie. I do think it does Mo a good turn t’ have someone the likes of ye t’ look after her.”
His face abruptly sobered, and he took a swig from his morning cup of ale.
“The Lord Hisself knows she don’t take well enough care of herself,” he grumbled. “I do worry about that lass.”
“Brit, she’s over thirty,” Alicia said, suddenly realizing that she didn’t know exactly how old her employer was. “She’s hardly a ‘lass’.”
Brit rumbled a laugh, and a patient smile creased his weathered, bearded face.
“Lassie, I do have more than a hundred years on my belt,” Brit said kindly, his eyes glinting in humor. “Mo may be no lump of pig iron, but she’d be about dead before she qualified as a forged blade in a dwarf’s life, and I’m likely to be just into my grave before ye reaches that age,” he said, reaching a gnarled hand across the table to tweak her chin.
Normally, Alicia would have had to fight a giggle at that. She did smile, but it faded as something occurred to her.
“Brit, how long have you worked for Mo?” she asked intently.
“Since she did buy this inn from Aletandur, the previous owner,” he answered, stroking his beard. “A fine lad, though no head for his ale.” A slightly malicious smile blossomed on Brit’s face, and Alicia decided she didn’t want to know what practical joke he was remembering.
“So you know this Birch fellow?” she asked. “The man from last night?”
Brit’s smile faded and he stared seriously at Alicia.
“Aye, I do know the lad,” he said soberly. “Did want t’ crack his head a few times, but a good lad altogether for a human. I did think to recognize him when he came in last night, but I did believe him t’ be dead an’ this nothing more than a look-alike.”
Alicia was silent for a moment, then she finally blurted, “He stayed in her room last night.”
Brit was taken aback a moment, then he frowned.
“Be that what’s got ye off the bellows this mornin’?” he asked. He looked at her critically. “I donna think ye needs worry about who Mo do be spendin’ the night with.”
Alicia brushed the implied chastisement aside.
“But who is he?” she said. “That elf and the boy with him…”
“He’s yer own age, lassie,” he interrupted, smiling behind his beard. Alicia glared at him, and Brit chuckled softly.
“Anyway, they told me a little about him last night.”
Alicia related what the boy – no, Brit was right – what the young man and the elf had told her last night. She felt silly telling someone else, still half-convinced the whole thing had been an elf’s fairytale. A man actually coming back from Hell? But his eyes…
“It do perhaps be possible,” Brit said. “Whatever I may hold against the lad for what he’s done t’ Mo, of all the paladins I met workin’ here, he’d be the one t’ come back.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, curious.
Brit frowned a moment, stroking his chin.
“I canna rightly say,” he rumbled after a moment. “There did just be somethin’ about the lad. Ye could just look at him an’ the word paladin did spring t’ mind. I do remember folk comment that he was all they pictured when they think on the holy warriors. Tall, strong, skilled, charming, and devoted to his beliefs.”
“And what did he do to Moreen?” Alicia wanted to keep the dwarf talking; there might never be a better time to learn what was going on.
“Just look at her,” Brit said, motioning absently. Alicia spun around guiltily, thinking the older woman might be standing nearby. “No, lass, she’s not there. I did mean t’ think about her,” Brit corrected himself. “Look at her in yer mind. She do be nearly two-score years in life, as ye said, and no man at her side. Well, there do be a man, he did just be in Hell for the last decade. And all that time, Mo did sit alone at that table waitin’.”
Brit rubbed a meaty palm at his eyes. Alicia frowned.
“It do be hard to see her, day after day, year after year, sittin’ alone at that table,” he said. “They used t’ sit there together, the pair of ‘em, before she did buy the inn. I do sometimes wonder if she did buy out Aletandur just to save their table. Even before the lad left for good, she did keep that table just for the two of ‘em.
“I could tell sometimes, when the drink did get t’ her, she saw him sittin’ there with her,” he said softly. Alicia was amazed to see the gruff dwarf’s eyes mist over as he stared absently toward the kitchen fire. “She did talk and laugh at comments heard not by her ears, but in her head. And her heart. She loves that lad, sure as my beard’s black.”
“And he just walked out on her?” Alicia said heatedly. “What kind of heartless clod is he? Just another brainless male who can’t stand to show his feelings.”
She blinked at a sudden sting in her nose and stared in amazement at Brit’s extended fingers wagging menacingly in front of her face.
“Speak not where ye have no knowledge, lass,” he said gruffly. “I did talk t’ the lad myself more than the once, ye might figure, and I tell you he do…”
Brit clamped his mouth shut as the kitchen door swung open. Instead of Moreen, though, the young man with Birch ducked his head into the kitchen.
“Excuse me,” he said softly.
“What needs ye, lad?” Brit growled without malice. “Do ye not know better than t’ stick yer hand in another’s forge?”
The young man, Danner she remembered his name from the night before, frowned, obviously not recognizing the reference.
“He means you shouldn’t come back here uninvited,” Alicia translated. “The kitchen is for employees only.”
Danner flushed and shifted his eyes to the ground.
“Oh, um, I’m sorry,” he stammered. “It’s just that last night we came in here and…” he trailed off uncertainly.
“No harm be done, lad,” Brit said, waving his hand. “Now, what needs ye?”
“I, uh, was looking for some food,” he said, casting his gaze about as if there might be a plate of breakfast just lying around waiting for him. “I’m hungry.” His eyes settled on Alicia for a moment, then he looked away, his cheeks reddening slightly.
“I’ll tell a maid on my way t’ the bar,” Brit replied. “She’ll have yer food in a few ticks.”
Danner bobbed in appreciation, then ducked back into the common room. The thread of their conversation lost, Alicia sighed as Brit swung himself off the bench and headed back to the bar. There went her chance to find out what was going on.
Alicia realized her break had lasted longer than she intended, and she ducked over to the fireplace and dipped herself a small cup of cahve.[29] She blew on it to cool it down, then swallowed it in two quick gulps. Pausing only long enough to rinse the cup in the dwarven-made sink, Alicia hurried to the common room to check on her morning customers.
- 3 -
A quick glance told her that she had only three patrons on her side of the common room, while Deeta and Cristal each had four in their sections. It came as a shock, then, when Alicia saw Danner sitting in her section, but being served by Deeta. The blonde minx was setting a bowl of steaming broth in front of Danner, and Alicia clenched her teeth as she saw Deeta accidentally brush against Danner’s arm with her bosom.
Danner flushed slightly, and Alicia saw his lips move as he murmured something. Deeta laughed coyly, laying a light hand on his shoulder before turning away. As she turned, she caught Alicia’s eye and flinched. Then she smiled winningly and winked.
She wi
nked!
Alicia grabbed her apron from the hook where she’d hung it outside the kitchen and tied the strings with more force than strictly necessary. It wasn’t until she was halfway across the room to Deeta that she stopped and wondered just what in San’s name she was doing. She barely knew the boy!
Young man, she corrected herself mentally. She stared appraisingly at him, a slight frown on her face. He was handsome, certainly, but Alicia had seen better. She’d been pursued by better looking boys, actually, although none recently. Word had gotten around that Alicia was “picky” with the boys she saw – that was the word they used when they were being polite, anyway – and suddenly every male in the city with a character flaw refused to come near her. Which meant all of them.
Just because she’d broken the nose of that idiot Ballaer. He should have known better than to pester her while she was working. And then to suggest that, once she was with him, he’d provide for her so she wouldn’t have to work. He insinuated that it somehow wasn’t proper and surely she wouldn’t want to anyway, and in return she’d be perfectly safe and content sitting at home cooking and cleaning for him, of course.
Alicia snorted in disgust at the memory, then realized she was still staring at Danner. He’d noticed her gaze and was studiously trying to look as though it didn’t bother him. Alicia quickly turned away and resumed her duties.
She continued to watch him out of the corner of her eye as she worked, paying just enough attention to her job to avoid banging into tables, chairs, and customers. Danner moved gracefully – when he wasn’t aware Alicia was watching him – and was very neat with his food. Alicia detested a sloppy eater.
During most of his meal, he kept his eyes fastened on the fireplace, which was halfway across the room from him. His eyes were sad, and Alicia suddenly found herself walking toward him. She stopped herself just short of resting a hand on his shoulder, and she spun around to leave, confused and irritated at herself. Danner heard her, though, and turned to look up at her.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 15