Tank Top 01: The Crossroads Cell

by James Lynch

felt the soft tendrils of her breath as she spoke. “So that I would explain him to you.”

  “Why ...” Naael thought of more than seven questions to follow that word, and paused so long trying to pick one that Léathol shifted back into her corner. She took a shuddering breath, and suddenly Naael realized he liked her. There was some tension he could not explain, and was powerless to prevent, but realized he would ease it for her if he could.

  “He has chosen you.”

  The simple, forlorn way in which she said those four words tore at Naael’s heart, yet at the same instant he felt an intense quickening. He had been chosen for something. Someone wanted him - someone with intense powers. Naael could feel it resonating in the very marrow of his bones. Akin to the peaceful feeling he’d been experiencing for the past hour or so he now felt adrift, as though he’d let go of some scabrous, wave-pounded rock to which he’d clung and now floated free across calm waters towards some destiny he hadn’t been exactly avoiding, but somehow life had conspired to keep from him.

  This must be my destiny, the one looking for me here in Jirin! he thought.

  “He is from the Order of the Owl,” Léathol continued softly, painfully. “A monk.”

  “A monk?” Naael’s question was forced from his mouth before he could stop it. Peace and drift hung in the balance as he felt for sure he had heard her wrong. Monks said prayers and lived on their knees, they begged for everything, worked endlessly, owned nothing. How could this be his destiny?

  Léathol’s scoff was enough to bring a flush to his face. “So little you know. Yes. A monk. Perceived as dull, toiling, penitent. But there is so much more. A monk would not have taken so long to leave this cell as I. A monk would not have been caught in the first place. A monk is never unarmed. A monk has such purpose, such dedication, such personal purity...” she trailed off. “You haven’t the slightest clue the power of a monk.”

  “Is he here to get me out?”

  “I believe he will,” Léathol agreed. “But he will follow the law. You will finish your term in this cell, but when the judge returns he will pay for your release. You will follow him, get a taste of what his order has to offer, and you will be hooked.”

  “Why does he want me?”

  He could sense Léathol’s pain in her momentary silence. “He has probably been watching you for some time now. They can tell these things. They can’t tell if you will make it, but they know when you have the potential. You will do it someday too. You will walk down a street, as invisible or plain as you desire, and simply through feeling the people around you, you will know when you’ve found someone who might fit in your order.”

  “So why today?”

  Léathol took a deep breath. “You found him today. Not the other way around.”

  Naael let that sink in. The peace he felt, he was ready to attribute it to this mysterious monk who suddenly invaded his life, but now he realized it was something within him that had finally come to the surface. Had he only needed a few days of forced patience? Had his life been so hectic he’d never strung together enough hours to find it? He wanted to laugh that being thrown in jail was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  “What of you?”

  “He has no use for me,” the venom returned to her voice. She almost hissed. “He will say I had my chance. Well, I say it is they who had theirs.”

  Naael wished he could let it drop. “I will get you out.”

  Léathol snorted. “What can you do?”

  “I’ll make it a condition of my following him,” Naael grasped at the first thing that came to him.

  The pause that followed grew painful in Naael’s ears and chest.

  “You would do that for me?” It was the gentlest thing he’d heard her say.

  Naael nodded.

  Léathol’s fingers, as strong and cold as he had imagined, yet soft and graceful, grasped Naael around the wrist. “Thank you, Naael. I believe you would.” She held his wrist for a moment, an oddly un-intimate touch yet it was the first time he’d felt anything beyond her breath. She let him go. “I would ask you not to. You don’t know the price you’d pay, and I do. If you follow this man, if you walk that path, I would ask you to do it without any baggage. The moment you make that decision, sever with everything that came before it. Take no thought for your clothes nor any other possession, no thought for your friends nor any other relation. There will be time enough for them later, but not while you begin your training.”

  Naael looked down at the wrist he could not see in the dark. “But what of you?”

  He got the sensation she’d turned further away from him. “I will be out of this cell before you.”

  Naael did not respond.

  “I know now I can go. It may even be that he will help me, but that does not matter. The judge is due back in four or five days. Do not look for me the day after tomorrow. It may not go easily for you once I am gone. They may deal harshly with you. If you are determined to give me something, forgive me that pain.”

  Naael flexed his fingers, felt his blood racing through his veins in great, thick pulses. The irony of how good this cell had been to him no longer made him want to laugh. It was simply fitting. Everything was beginning to fit.

  He reached out and put his hand on Léathol’s shoulder. He knew before he touched her that she’d recoil in anger if his touch had the slightest hint of desire, aggression, or pity. Without knowing how, he simply touched her as a friend, and said the only words that could have made his actions acceptable to her. “Thank you, Léathol. I will not forget what you’ve taught me.”

  To his shock, she reached up and placed her hand on his where his gripped her shoulder. Her fingers trembled slightly, then the moment passed and she let her arm fall away.

  Naael released her and crouched in his own corner. Two gargoyles against the same wall, he chuckled to himself. Too bad we can’t move through stone. But then he looked towards Léathol and wondered.

  Six days later Naael stepped into the sun, blinking through narrowed eyes, a step behind Master Poe of the Order of the Owl. Though they’d been together for another day, Léathol had not said another word and had disappeared exactly as she’d warned. There was simply no trace of her when the guards came to take them out for their walk.

  She’d been right, of course. The guards hadn’t believed he didn’t know what happened to her. They hadn’t taken well to his obvious assertions that if he knew how she’d escaped, he’d have gone too. Nor had they cared for the implication that, as he was not guarding any prison exits, someone else was more culpable for her disappearance than he. They’d tried some half-hearted torture, which still seemed excessive to him, and he’d carry a few scars to remember her.

  The day before the judge had returned they’d finally relented and let him out of the cell for a walk around the prison and a meal at the table. He could have sworn that, as he ate, he saw a shadow with the shape of her hair, her long, graceful legs, her stooped arms, but he wasn’t about to do or say anything about it then.

  --==>==--

  I hope you enjoyed The Crossroads Cell. The characters and settings in this short story or “tank top” show up elsewhere in my series of novels, and the situations and concepts found here will hopefully add richness and flavor. One of the goals of the tank tops is to increase the enjoyment of the readers, as they will know more of the background to my novels.

  Next is the introductory chapter to my first book A Scattering of Seeds. I hope you enjoy it!

  --==>==--

  Lightning

  3287-04-12-2848nt

  Tieron faltered and crashed to his knees on the muddy street. Outstretched hands and splayed fingers shattered the elbow-deep puddle, splattering his heaving chest and gasping face with thick, summer-warm water. The wild flickering of lightning and instantaneous shuddering thunder illuminated the whites of his wide eyes and drowned his coughing cry.

  He struggled to his feet, dragging his boots through the puddle while h
e searched wildly over his shoulder. Sinking to one knee, left hand clutched to a pouch tied to his left shoulder, he saw them shift and bob in the archway of the alley from which he’d emerged. They oriented on him a moment later and darted forward.

  With a frustrated growl that did more to clear his throat than make noise, Tieron lurched forward. A sprinter’s physique and trained balance allowed him to keep his distance, but the constant flight and wounds from his pursuers’ occasional success were taking their toll. His two-toned wheeze often caught into a rattling cough, raw pain pulled at abrasions on the side of his head, and his vision blurred constantly.

  He turned another corner, pulling frantically at the catches of the pouch. He could feel the thick pulsing within, the slickness as the lining of the pouch seemed unable to touch the object within.

  Another flash of purple lightning connected sky and earth, tearing away a chunk of tree not ten feet away. The sudden blast and fury blew Tieron off his feet. He rolled over mid-flight, thick rain soaking his body, the pounding of the thunder reverberating painfully through his chest. He slammed back to ground and tried to roll further to spread out the impact, but came up short against the stone of a wall.

  Desperately pushing himself to hands and knees, leaning against the impeding wall, Tieron squinted back towards the tree. The cry of pain in his left arm echoed loudly