by Katy Winter
"You like the view, boy?"
"It's at peace," answered Luton, his arm sweeping in an arc for emphasis. Kher thought that in the depths of his being, Luton yearned for the same peace, but he just nodded.
"There is beauty in solitude," he agreed, turning quietly away. When a hand touched his shoulder, Kher turned back surprised.
"I need to be alone."
Kher looked into the dark eyes meeting his and his own hard ones gentled. He put his hand over the one on his shoulder.
"I know you do, boy," he said softly. "I understand, Luton."
Luton nodded and moved away.
~~~
They left the plains and rode the meandering trail Luton loved so much when he came south with Shek and Autchek. As it was then, now it was early spring. The forest and meadows relaxed the young man. Kher could even see tension in the young shoulders ease by the day. When they camped, Luton disappeared for long periods. Once, Kher went in search of him. He found him crouched, utterly still, by a small stream that was a miniature torrent with the tumbling water from melting snow, his hand trailing in the water. Luton didn't see Kher. The haskar tactfully withdrew, his brow puckered in thought.
Luton walked among the trees, his hand going to the bark with a gentle querying hand and his head tilted as though he tried to divine some property from the trees. When the meandering trail sloped upwards, Luton spurred his horse forward to the beginning of the real forest, green-clad now in early spring, where he dismounted and stayed crouched, motionless, until the others caught up with him. Kher noticed the shade faded until it was barely discernible at times. The closer Luton was to nature, the more transparent it became. That made the warrior ponder too.
When the riders reached the crouching Luton, the dark head would lift. Luton's eyes met Kher's. Then, with a wrench, the haskar remembered the boy too frightened to lift his head, let alone look into Kher's eyes. Kher wondered if he'd ever see emotion in those large dark eyes again and found himself wishing desperately that he could.
As they wound their way through the forest, ever upwards, Luton spent more and more time beside the streams, the running water exerting such a fascination, the haskar wondered why. Luton couldn't have enlightened him. The babbling and gurgling brooks entranced him. At each one he stooped, hands scooping up water to his mouth.
One evening, while camp was being set and food put on to cook, as of habit Luton made his way to the nearest rill. He sank onto a huge glacial boulder and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the water beside him. That was when he saw her. She was small and slight. Her eyes were the green of deep rivers. Her hair could've been his. She sat on a stone opposite, her elfin face gentle but profoundly sad. Her enormous eyes surveyed him, then went beyond him to the shade, which, when she raised a hand, hovered uncertainly then disappeared. The woman's voice was as musical as Luton's.
"Lute," she said quietly. Luton's eyes stayed closed.
"I can see you," he whispered. "Who are you?"
"I've come to help you see, Lute. I'm your greatdame, your mother's mother. I answered to Cynthas, as your mother answered to Melas. I'm of water. You're drawn to water through me, child."
"Are you real?"
"Substance and shadow, Lute. What's reality?"
"Why have you come to me?"
"You can't see, Lute, because of what's been done to you. You must understand so that, when the time comes, you'll see clearly and know. You need to know who you are and your origins."
"I know who I am."
"Do you, Lute? Tell me."
"I'm a slave and I belong to -."
"Come with me," she interrupted, her hand up and dark head shaking at him. "Let me show you."
Luton's mind was caught in hers, the touch gentle and without pain. All Luton sensed was affection and concern when he was told to stand and watch. Obediently he opened his eyes as instructed and saw an image, large as life, unfold in front of him.
He saw a tall, white-haired man, still with auburn tints through the wayward curls, alight from a dragon, go into a clearing and couple with the woman he talked with moments before. He was swept to another image of the same woman, giving birth and dying, before that picture passed and he saw her baby carried and left in a town that, with a twist in his gut, he knew was Ortok. He saw a woman grow from the infant. Her hair was black and curly like her dead mother's, but her eyes were as vividly deep and violet as her father's, then, when Luton saw himself born of the woman, one of two that were received with joy and love, Luton felt he haemorrhaged inside. Pain suddenly cramped him. It was pushed away. He tried to deny the link with the green-eyed woman. It was then he saw a tall man with dark smiling eyes, a boy beside him, as they looked at suckling twins, and Luton knew he saw his father, Alfar, and his older brother, Sarehl, as a child.
He came back to himself, perched on the stone, tears running down his cheeks. He was completely unaware of them.
"Why do you show me this?" he asked huskily.
"You need to know who you are, Lute, that you're deeply cherished, especially by the other half you've lost. Though those who care can't be with you, they're alive and wait for you. Do you understand where you come from?" Luton nodded, his eyes very wide. The pupils were dilated. He breathed rapidly. "Remember when the time comes, Lute, that I fought to come to help you see. You must hold to that."
The woman's image began to fade, even as Luton put out a hand to her. He touched only flowing water. He gave a gasp and bent over. He felt an agonising shaft deep inside that subsided to a sensation of great warmth. The moment passed. Luton straightened as though nothing had happened, his hand trailing in the water, face set and eyes forbidding. The shade was once more behind him.
~~~
The trip through the mountain pass was relatively easy and held none of the horrors that beset Luton on the caravan's trek south. He scarcely noticed the thawing ice and the slushy snow because he was adequately clothed and well fed. Nor was he a cowed slave who struggled to survive one appalling day after another. Kher thought Luton withdrew into himself as they climbed higher. He made no comment.
When the peak was reached, the travellers paused to get their breath and to admire the view. Luton looked north and south expressionlessly, then crouched on the path, before he rose and went across to his horse to lead it. He began to walk ahead of the others.
Further on, he came to a halt. He went to the very edge of the trail to stare over it, conscious he felt something inexplicable, something strongly akin to a desperate desire to slide, unresisting, over the edge. Kher watched him. Luton had the oddest sensation he'd stood very near here once, not so long ago, wanting to die, and he felt a sudden sweep of chilling ice surge through him. He shook his head. Kher came across to him.
"What is it, boy?" Luton looked oddly at him.
"I seem to think I've been here before." The voice hardened from uncertainty when he spoke. "That's not possible."
"Nothing, young friend, is impossible," responded Kher, in the gentle voice he reserved for this young man. "Is it a happy thought?"
"I don't understand happiness. I think I felt the pain I receive from my master if he's displeased."
Luton shook his head again, a slight look of concern in the dark eyes, the first sign of expression the haskar had seen. He said nothing when the young man withdrew from the precipice with a sigh. The shade fell back.
The down trek was accomplished quite easily because there was nothing to hold them back. Their stay in Elibera was very brief, because Kher wanted to move north as quickly as he could, and he didn't want a confrontation between Loki, Alleghy's younger son, and Luton. The weather was pleasantly warm and they reached the base of the peaks in good time. Luton was almost twenty cycles when Kher led him and the warriors across the northern boundary of Dahkilah. Here again they saw poverty, but not the wretched chaos and social disintegration of the south. Here the people were crushed but they were not hopeless, and though they gave the Churchik a wide berth,
they were different with Luton. Kher realised it was because they recognised the young man as a northerner.
They stopped for a long break in the Norsham garrison because Kher wanted to rest the horses and also had business to attend to. When they drew up outside the garrison headquarters, where they would briefly reside, Kher spoke curtly to his men.
"We are here for a short stay. Do you organise yourselves." The warriors nodded. "And you, Luton, you do not wander off on your own here. That is an order, boy!" Luton looked enquiringly at the haskar then he nodded, his eyes surprisingly compliant. Kher turned back to his warriors, his voice grim. "Two of you will guard him at all times, do you understand? His exploits in Chika will follow him from now on and I cannot know if any of Haskar Alleghy's kin are garrisoned here." The warriors nodded comprehension, their glances flickering to Luton. He stood quietly, his head bent.
~~~
Luton's stay in Norsham was markedly different from his first, when he was a terrified and trembling boy hiding behind broken masonry to avoid Churchik warriors. Then his heart had hammered, so violently, he'd felt pain and was scarcely able to breathe.
Now he stood among them, taller than most, but still boyishly slender beside them in the way that Bethel was. When he went about with Kher there were few who got in his way. It wasn't just his looks and physical frailty that made Luton stand out - it was his indifference to the Churchik that made them nervous of him. For so long they'd been a dominant race, used to people intimidated and cowering. Luton wasn't. The aura of power that clung to this young man made them uneasy too. He did nothing in particular, merely moving among the garrison as though they didn't exist. They found this difficult to deal with.
He was accepted, because the warlord's third in command had the boy under his authority. Nobody challenged Kher. He could become like ice. Nor did any warrior wish to be drawn to Blach's attention. They all knew about Alleghy's daughter and it made them very cautious in their dealings with the sorcerer's apprentice.
Since Kher discovered quickly that there were no kin of Alleghy's present, Luton was permitted to walk the remnants of the town, passing the place where he'd crouched as a boy and sobbed for a friend he thought had died. He halted at the spot, feeling an unusual tug inside that baffled him, before he strode on. He ate with the warriors and because Kher made it plain he was to socialise, he struggled to do so. Solitary habits of silence were not easily shaken off, but Luton did try. This gave the garrison a shock because none of the warriors knew the mute could now speak. It provoked considerable talk. Churchik awe of Luton deepened.
A slave caravan entered Norsham from the south several days ahead of the travellers and it was to the slaves that Luton found himself drawn. He often dawdled down by the pens, looking at the pathetic and huddled groups of mixed genetic groupings. The caravan Luton was on, cycles ago, were northerners like himself, whereas these slaves were from all the subjugated southern peoples, among them many northerners being brought back to their home provinces. They eyed Luton with venomous hatred. When they spat at him, he wondered why.
One afternoon, he stood next to a young man of similar age to himself. He got the look of loathing he'd come to expect.
"Why do you look at me as you do?" he asked coldly.
"Because you're one of them," snarled the young man, rattling the chain that held him prisoner.
"I'm a slave," Luton replied, with a shrug.
"Show me you are," scoffed the young man, spitting at Luton's feet. Luton immediately opened his mouth and pointed. The young man saw a very deep brand and took a step back, a hand to his mouth. "Gods," he muttered, "you are a slave!"
"I'm a slave of Blach's. I live at the Keep."
"Cursed be the name," moaned the young man. He fell back as far as his chains let him. He crossed himself. "Where are you from? You look like a Samar."
"They tell me I am, but I don't know. I only know life as a mute slave raised at the Keep. I've no memory. I've only just started to speak."
"Has the sorcerer taken your memory, too, like others?"
"I was mute. I know nothing else."
"He takes mutes for experiments. Is that what he's done with you?" Luton shrugged.
"Perhaps I'm one of his experiments, yes."
"Do you feel emotion?"
"I don't understand what it is."
"Gods," moaned the man again. He raised a hand, compassion mixed with horror in his eyes. "What's he done to you? I pity you, but I beg you, go and leave me."
When Luton returned to the slave pens the next day, he got measuring glances of uncertainty, some ignored him, others despised what they believed he'd become, but the hatred was gone. Luton was even able to talk with some of them. Though he was unable to sympathise, he learned what the meanings of words were, such as hunger, pain, despair and utter misery. At night when he couldn't sleep, he'd mull these new concepts over in his mind.
The young man became more at ease with the Churchik, asked Kher insatiable questions, and, after a week, conversed quite easily with the other garrison warriors if he felt inclined to do so. He asked about what went before where the southern army was concerned, and he listened to talk of the warlord without outward expression. When he was asked by warriors if he wished to learn weaponry, Luton shook his head, unaware the Churchik had no knowledge of the training he'd been given at the Keep cycles before.
The warriors thought his frailty effeminate and his apparent lack of warlike skills reduced his status, but they stayed baffled by him. He had a faint sense of displeasure when told, one evening, they left Norsham the following morning, but he just nodded. Kher's escort from Caciqua stayed on in Norsham, to later move north with a combined force when called for by the warlord, probably, Kher judged, in the very near future if reports he heard of the two armies was correct.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The ride north to Ortok was interesting for Kher. He kept watching Luton while they travelled, hoping for even the faintest sign of recognition, but Luton stayed blank. He was quite unaware that this trek took the slave caravan, going south, almost a cycle to accomplish. They came, eventually, to what was the middle of the Confederation of the Samar city-states, now fortified garrisons held by the Churchik. The burned land returned, much of it again productive and worked by slaves who toiled from dawn to sunset in the fields. Much of the devastation, other than to the cities, had disappeared, but the cities themselves were still mostly shells. Some effort had gone into reconstruction but not much. Anyone in them, other than Churchik, melted from view instantly.
The lanes the men rode were beautiful at this time of the cycle, bounded by trees with boughs that gracefully overhung the hedgerows to cast welcome shade. The hills rolled away into the distance, lanes winding through them to other parts of Samar.
Just outside what was once Siar, they made camp one evening, just off the main road. Luton gathered the reins of the horses, automatically taking over their care as he'd once done as a boy, though Kher was careful not to comment about it. When he returned to the fire Luton flung himself down beside it, enhancing it with the casual flick of the long fingers. They'd stopped while it was still daylight, so Kher quietly rested on one elbow, a book open on the ground in front of him. He glanced briefly at the tall sprawled out figure, then went back to the book, while Luton rolled onto his stomach and cupped his chin in his hands, his black eyes staring into the distance.
Kher flicked another glance at the prone form, realising as he did that the black beard had got noticeably thicker and longer over the last season. It was soft and silky and decidedly wavy. Kher knew he looked at one who'd left boyhood behind, Luton no longer even a youth, but a young man. The haskar thought wistfully of the boy as his eyes took in the shade, ever vigilant, standing to one side of a tree. He went back to reading.
"You're thinking of me with a sense of longing, Kher," came the deep voice, interrupting the haskar's train of thought. "You think of the slave boy you cared for, but you're muddling him with
me."
"Perhaps," replied Kher, looking up to see the dark head turned towards him. "Sometimes thoughts are random."
"Mine aren't. I'd earn censure from my master should I let that happen."
"You are controlled, Luton, in a way that I am not."
"And that distresses you?"
"Yes," admitted Kher.
"What do you read?"
"It is a history that I take everywhere with me, because it gives me food for thought as we travel. It keeps my mind active because I always want to know more."
"Knowledge can be dangerous," stated Luton flatly. "It can be gained without realisation of what it means. Knowledge must be tempered; it's nothing without wisdom, judgment and reason."
"Is it with you?"
"My knowledge is limited. My master teaches me what he will, but he has vast knowledge. I'm only his apprentice."
"Do you seek knowledge, Luton?"
"I seek only that which my master directs me to follow."
"If you could, boy, would you seek knowledge for yourself?" Kher noticed the perceptible hesitation.
"I think," said Luton carefully, "that I'd not seek more, no."
"Why?"
"I don't understand my own reasoning," mumbled Luton, his dark eyes meeting Kher's and holding. Then they dropped and Luton bent his head in his arms.
"Do you know your destiny, boy?" Luton lifted his head, the emotionless eyes flickering.
"My master told me, when I first woke at the Keep, that he uses mutes for a purpose and once that purpose is served, a slave has no further function. I know my master's use for me will finish one day and I'll be disposed of. He's told me so." Kher shivered.
"Can you see beyond that, boy?"
"I see only to the day the master has no use for me, Kher. I belong to him and he'll dispose of his slave as he wills."
"Do you want to live, Luton?" Luton considered that dispassionately.
"If my master wills it so, I'd live."
"It is your right to live, boy."
Luton stared at the haskar and his cold words robbed Kher of any desire to continue the conversation. His skin crawled.