by kubasik
* * *
Even as J'role stepped into the large common room filled with tables and the central fire pit, a dozen of the patrons of Brandson's Tavern gasped and stared openly at the ork behind him. Their collective gasp of surprise and shock was like the sound of wind rustling branches just before a rain. J'role was pleased; for once they could not simply ignore him. His companion was an ork.
J 'role saw them struggling with their own thoughts – Should they let the ork in? Why shouldn't they? Why should they? Their indecision cost them the chance to protest, for before anyone could speak, Garlthik had closed the door behind him.
J'role pointed Brandson out to Garlthik, and the ork walked up to the weary-looking man who wore a smock stained with beer and the juices of roasted meats. As with Charneale, Garlthik extended his hand and introduced himself. Unlike Charneale, Brandson returned the handshake, but without the well-known smile he usually bestowed on neighbors and guests.
The two discussed the price of a room: Garlthik would stay at least three days, though he might leave at a moment's notice. This disturbed Brandson, making him wonder if he was inviting trouble into his establishment. But Garlthik produced silver coins to pay in advance for all three days. Whether he left early or not, Brandson could keep the money.
Brandson accepted the coins, and the two shook hands again. This time Brandson smiled his famous smile.
Garlthik turned to J'role. "I've got to get some sleep, lad. Here's your pay so far." He dug his thick fingers into a leather sack strung onto his belt and produced another silver.
Brandson's eyes widened. "Come back later, and I'll tell you some tales of my adventures.
How's that, eh?”
J'role nodded enthusiastically. He loved stories, but wanted the real stories, not his father's lies.
Garlthik picked up his sack and turned to climb the stairs For the first time J'role realized how weary the ork was, who leaned heavily on the railing as he walked slowly up the steps. The blue cloak, the blue of the sky just after sunset when the stars first appear, had a big gash running down its length. Under the cloak, J'role spotted a rip in the ork's shirt, and beneath that, the flash of a wide purple scar.
Halfway up the stairs Garlthik stopped, drew something from a small sack attached to his belt. The object was too small for J'role to make out, but Garlthik stared at it a long time.
Then he clenched his fist around it and laughed softly. He raised his foot halfway to the next step, then stopped, turning his head unexpectedly, looking directly at J'role, catching the boy staring at him.
The good humor in the ork's face suddenly left. In a gruff tone he said, "You shouldn't look where you're not invited."
J'role desired to run away as quickly as possible. But he stayed rooted to the spot, unable to move, afraid that motion would betray a weakness that Garlthik would use to harm him.
Without a change in his grim expression, Garlthik turned back up the stairs and on to the second floor.
When Garlthik had gone from sight, J'role turned to Brandson. Over the years the two had worked out a rudimentary sign system, which J'role now used to buy some bread and cheese with one of the silver pieces Garlthik had given him. Brandson gave him change and wrapped the food in a large piece of cloth, which J'role put under his arm as he left the tavern to find his father. He decided not to show his father the change he'd received, nor the second silver Garlthik had given him, fearing that his father might take the money to spend on drink. All he would show his father was the food.
"Time to feed Dad?" the creature in his thoughts asked.
J'role ignored it.
2
He dreamed of many things, not all bad. But all forgotten. When J'role was only six months old, he began to speak. The words "Mama" and "Papa" were quickly followed by full sentences, and by the second year of his life he began to have full conversations—still limited by the viewpoint of a child, but much more complex in structure than the talk of other children his age.
His parents took pride in his speaking, his mother especially. Red-haired and large, she carried him around the moss-lit corridors of the kaer introducing him to the other inhabitants of the shelter. Other adults, massive like; his mother, leaned down and cooed over him, delighted to engage him in conversation. His mother beamed. She held him tight.
By the time J'role reached the kaer, the stars had spun around the earth, and the stars looked down on him, bright and clear. He had not meant to wander the dry land between his village and the kaer at this late hour, but he had searched everywhere for his father, checking an the usual-hiding places. Behind Brandson's barn. In a shallow ditch near Ishan's warm furnace. In the copse of trees near the north end of the village where Jaspree's influence ended and the land became dry and lifeless, ruined by the work of the Horrors over four centuries.
All the while the creature in his head said, "You know where he is. Why do you delay?"
The creature was right. J'role did know where his father would be—back in the kaer. He invariably went there these days, safe from prying eyes and the company of others. Only children daring each other's courage ever returned to the kaer, and even those excursions stopped once the children realized J'role's father had adopted the dark caves as his home.
So now J'role walked across the flat, dry distance between the farmlands and the kaer, carrying the bundle of food for his father. The moonlight, soft and gentle-blue, illuminated the barren landscape the Horrors had left behind. Stones. Chalky dirt. As J'role walked, the desolation around him seeped into his spirit, as though he were walking through a giant reflection of what he carried within himself.
"You could kill yourself."
"Don't,' J'role begged, half-stumbling as the creature's words drove into his thoughts. —
"Wouldn't it be easier'
"Why don't you leave me alone? I don't—"
"Don't what? Want to give up. Give up what? Hurt anyone? Who would you hurt? Only your father. Maybe. And he probably wouldn't notice that you were gone."
The truth of the statement stopped J'role in his tracks. He dropped the bundle of food to the ground. For a moment his hands and arms felt stiff and detached from his control, then he slammed his fists into his forehead, wanting to knock the thing out of his mind.
He slammed his head again and again, beating his fists wildly about his face until he became dizzy and dropped to his knees. Still he punched himself, flailing until he could no longer feel his hands or the flesh on his forehead and face.
He dropped forward, leaning on his forearms, breathing heavily, tears in his eyes from the pain.
"I like it when you do that."
J'role sometimes thought that if he hurt himself enough, the thing would get full of pain and finally leave. It never worked.
J'role's ancestors had helped build the kaer generations ago, carved it out of the soft rock of the Red Hills the way people all over the world had built shelters to protect themselves from the Horrors. An old empire of strong magic had given warning to the world of the coming Scourge, and had counseled everyone how to protect themselves. Staring at the Red Hills J'role wondered what had happened to the old empire.
Before him, lit by the blue moonlight,- the Red Hills looked like a giant shadow rising from the ground.
Why did his father have to come here?
Setting the bundle into the crook of his left arm, he began climbing up the hill to a ledge some thirty feet up. The rough rock dug into the fingers of his right hand and the soles of his feet, but, as with running, J'role found the exertion exhilarating. His breathing increased, and several times he almost fell back down the hill. But he caught himself each time—with only one hand free and continued. He took pleasure in that. A smooth climb would not have been as much fun. He liked near misses and last-minute saves.
Reaching the ledge- J'role sat down to rest, staring at the round entrance to the kaer.
Symbols used to ward off the Horrors ringed the large opening, symbols just li
ke those on the magician's robes. A long dragon wound its way around the entrance, and all around the dragon were drawings of trees, suns, plants, water. Animals of all sorts: jaguar, boar, hypogriff. The dots and dashes around the pictures broke the sounds of the objects'
names into bits, those bits which the scribe wanted to use to form a new word. J'role knew this because his mother had once explained it to him. She had not understood what the words meant, how to read or write them, but she understood enough about how the words were formed, and J'role remembered what she'd told him about reading and writing.
If only he could read. If only he could write. But who would take a cursed, mute boy on as an apprentice?
He got up and approached the entrance, wanting to find his father and then leave as quickly as possible. Shattered rocks lay strewn about the circular opening, the remains of the day Charneale had decided it was safe to smash open the sealed entrance so that the people could- reemerge into the world. J'role's father had been so happy that day—too happy—laughing, singing, talking so quickly that J'role could only just make out his father's rushing conversation. Everything will be all right now, we'll start again. Spirits, how lucky we are to be given this second chance!
The moonlight illuminated only the first few feet of the tunnel, after which all became black. The darkness, J'role knew, extended deep into the hill. He'd forgotten to bring a brand, or rather, he'd been hoping to meet his father returning to the village somewhere across the desolate landscape .
J'role's thinking became unbalanced when he thought of the kaer.
Luckily, someone, most likely his- fathers had- left three brands on the ground near the tunnel entrance. With the flint he pulled from his pouch, J'role used one of the shattered portal stones to spark a flame to life on the tip of the brand. The fire grew quickly, greedily gulping the air. The red light lapped at the corridor’s red stone, turning the walls black.
J'role picked up the bundle of food and moved forward. He picked his way carefully, very quietly now, because some thing might have moved into the dark corridors of the kaer. He also moved carefully because the entrance tunnel had once been full of triggers for traps to keep the Horrors out— pits, poison arrows, and other more arcane, magical means of destruction. Although the devices had all been disengaged when Charneale opened the kaer, the floor was littered with trip wires and spear tips that could drag an unwary Visitor to the floor.
Soon he reached the central Atrium, a large; circular chamber with a great fountain in the center. During the Scourge, magicians had cast magic to draw water from the very stone of the fountain. A pillar rose from the center of the fountain's bowl, and atop the pillar stood a statue of Garlen, the spirit of healing and home. The statue was not carved from the stone of the-Red Hills, but of white marble. The flickering red flames bathed her form, turning it rose-colored, giving the illusion of movement to her intricately sculpted gown, color to her cheeks. Her arms were raised, welcoming; her hips wide, her breasts large. She would take care of everyone. Or so Helvar, one of the Garlen's questors in the kaer, had said. .
J'role turned from the statue, saw the many corridors leading out of the Atrium and into the hive-like maze of the kaer. Which way did he go? Where was his father nursing his drink?
J 'role stood still, quiet, as still and quiet as the statue of Garlen behind him. Sometimes…
He heard it. The singing. Low and sad. Though he could not make out the words, he knew it was a happy song, something about love, or adventure. Or a farmer's song, one they sung to keep spirits high while toiling under the sun. His father only sang happy songs, but he sang them all sad.
J'role moved toward the singing, crossing the Atrium and listening at me entrances of several tunnels. Finally he found the right one and proceeded.
He walked for what seemed a long time though it was only the darkness and memories stretching out his thoughts that made the short walk seem long. Once, when he had lived in the kaer, floating lanterns had provided constant, safe illumination, following alongside anyone moving through the corridors. Now, as J'role crisscrossed the tunnels
—picking up the trail of his father's singing, losing it, finding it again—only the red light of his brand flickered along the red walls. Cracks and crags in the walls vanished and appeared as the firelight danced. The scuttle of strange creatures moving swiftly through the darkness echoed softly.
He had never heard such things in his youth.
And the smell. Things moved in and out of the tunnels now, strange things even his father's tales did not describe. Or so J'role imagined.
He passed the large hall where all his people ate, this room the rooms where Charneale taught his pupils. Down to his right the corridor led to the chambers where his family had slept. He was glad his father wasn't down there. The memories clawed at J 'role as he passed those rooms, though he could remember no specific incident.
He just didn't like the place
When the singing was clear and loud enough for J'role to make out the words to his father's favorite love song, a song he used to sing to J'role's mother, he realized where his father was. It was a place where he did remember what happened.
Did his father have to be there?
Maybe he could set the bundle down here, leave it for his father? When his father got hungry, he'd stagger down the corridor, find it. Eat.
Wouldn't that be enough?
No, what if his father passed out from drink and hunger, passed out and never found the food, starved to death with his meal only fifty feet away?
Would-that be so bad?
J 'role's muscles tightened in horror at his thought.
"J’role," said the creature, its tone full of mock concern. "did you just realize something about yourself you don't like?”
J'role's hands trembled, and to shake off the terror of his thoughts he moved forward, concentrating on how much his father had done for him.
"Like what?" asked the creature. J’role had no answer.
He turned a corner and saw a brand jammed into at crack in the wall, the tip ablaze with yellow-red light. Bevarden, his father, sat on the ground, back to the corridor's wall, his head tilted back, singing his song. "And never will I—" He stopped singing and turned abruptly toward J'role. "Who is it? Who's there?"
The sight of his father's face in the red light shocked J'role. Skin taut, eyes deep; a death mask. Dirty, ragged cloth for clothes. Arms and legs thin, belly bloated. Was this how his father really looked? Then Bevarden’s face softened, a smile appeared. "J'role," he said happily, dreamily. The terrible sight blurred into something much more comprehensible and familiar. Bevarden raised an arm, gesturing for J'role to approach. "My boy, my precious boy," his father' said as J 'role came closer. J'role smiled in return.
His father kept his arm extended, so he could take J'role's hand But J'role stopped a few feet away. Just beyond was the pit, fifteen feet wide, and very, very deep. Eight feet down from the pit's brim glowed the surface of the pale blue liquid. It was thick, and bubbles appeared every so often.
The home of the dead.
When they'd put his mother in the pit, after stoning her to death in the fountain of the Atrium, with everyone in the kaer participating, the water no longer flowing so they could collect the blood, the statue of Garlen looking on . . . After they'd stoned her, according to the ritual to drive the Horror out of her body and out of the kaer, they brought her body to the pit and threw it into the viscous blue liquid. She followed many other corpses who had died much, much more peaceful deaths.
For weeks afterward J'role had returned to the pit when no-one else was around, waiting for her to come back. It seemed to him, eight years old at the time, that she should. She had been punished, and wrongly so, because it was he who had the Horror in his head and not her, and it was his fault they thought she was possessed, and now it was time for her to come back.
Every time he stood at the edge of the pit he tried to say how sorry he was. He would open his
mouth, forming his lips into the shape to make the sound I, rolling the tip of his tongue to the edge of his teeth, desperately wanting to say, “I’m sorry." But as soon as he began to make a sound, he felt his jaw turn prickly, lost the sensation of his tongue, and knew that the creature was still in him, ready to take control of his mouth should he try to speak. So he said nothing
Nothing, even after all these years.
"What is it, lad?” asked his father. "Oh, the pool. Yes.” He turned and looked into it.
"Lost in there among all the other dead." He picked up his flask from the floor, placed the spout to his mouth, and took a long swallow. Then he leaned his head back slowly, until it came to rest against the stone wall, eyes closed, happy. Happier than when he smiled at J'role, and J’role knew it. Truly happy. He remained motionless for a moment, still savoring the drink, then slowly turned his head toward his son.
J'role, confused, eager either to leave his father quickly or to please him, knelt down on the stone floor and set the bundle before him. He unwrapped it and the food spilled out.