by Jim Galford
Raeln pulled his hand away and stared at the man a long time. Finally, he offered his hand toward the other wildling in a gesture of greeting that the man ignored.
“My name is Raeln,” he admitted, lowering his hand to his lap. “The war is going badly, and my friend and I came here to warn the city…”
“Lantonne can burn to ash for all I care, Raeln. The people here have done no better by my family than Altis did.”
Raeln fidgeted uncomfortably under the angry stare of the man. In an attempt to change topics, he asked, “Why do you stay here? You’re a skilled healer. With magic, I would think you could easily escape.”
The man’s anger faded to sadness immediately, and his shoulders sunk. Absently, he stared toward the fire, where several other wildlings were among those huddled there. In particular, Raeln believed he was watching two small fox kits eating scraps from dirty plates.
“Are they yours?” Raeln asked, but the man shrugged.
“They’re all I have left,” he answered, closing his eyes and sinking deeper into his blanket. “If I thought I could get them out of the camp safely, I would have gone months ago. I won’t risk them, even to be free.”
“You care that much for someone else’s children?”
“I do. They don’t deserve to be slaves. I can’t abandon them to it. I’ll die trying to get them better lives. If anything happened to them, I don’t think I could keep on living. I’ve already lost…” The man trailed off and stayed silent a long time, his ears slowly flattening back as he struggled with some memory he chose not to share.
Raeln finally gave up on the conversation and began to stand up, only to have the wildling grab him by the wrist, just above the silver bracelet.
“Can you get them out of here safely?” he asked Raeln. “Could you ensure they would be safe? Is there any chance?”
“No, I can’t. Everywhere I’ve gone, we’ve faced death and danger. If I sneak them out, they will be in more danger than they are in here. At least here, the only risk is disease or a whip. Out there, there are armies marching.”
The man’s face fell somewhat, and he released Raeln.
“Then they’ll stay here,” the man said absently, watching the kits again. “They’re happy most of the time. They don’t remember what it was like to be free. I can be a slave for them…so long as it keeps them safe.”
“Is there anyone out there that I can find for you? Anyone that could come for you or them?”
The man folded his legs under himself and draped his long black-and-white striped tail across his lap as he looked up at Raeln. Shaking his head, he said, “Their father is dead and their mother…their mother may as well already be dead. I swore I’d find and protect them, so they’re my family now, until someone better comes along. This is my choice and my duty; I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Raeln clasped the man’s shoulder. “You’re a better man than most. I hope you find freedom for you and your children. If I find a way to help, I will.”
“Thank you, Raeln,” the man answered, smiling weakly. “You’ve already done more for me than most of the people here. You made me think about why I do what I do. I think that will be enough to keep me going for now.”
Raeln paused where he was and then noticed the two kits watching him from their seats at the fire. They were looking at him not like children seeing a stranger, but as youths already older than they should have been after rough experiences of their own. They were watching to be sure he was not mistreating their “father.” He had no doubt that either might attack him if he laid a hand on this man in anger.
“Stay safe,” Raeln told the man, kneeling in front of him. In Hyeth, it was a common enough behavior to thank a healer, but he knew it was not something done as far south as Lantonne. Still, he wanted to do it, if only for the kits. “You’ve saved my life. Someday, maybe I can find a way to help you.”
Laughing, the healer patted Raeln’s head, then pulled him up off the floor.
“I’ll hold you to that,” the man told him, his eyes more bright than they had been when Raeln had entered the room. “Get out of here before they figure out you don’t belong. When I see you again, those children will be free, even if it costs me everything. That, I promise you, Raeln.”
Raeln smiled back at the healer, thanked him again, and got to his feet. With a single glance back at the man and his adopted children, Raeln made his way out of the building and into the night beyond.
At the foot of the building’s steps, the human that had met him in the field was waiting and glanced up as Raeln appeared. “He does good work,” the human noted, then motioned back toward the building. “Get back in there and rest.”
“I should go back to my tent,” Raeln told the human and tried to step around the man, only to have the human put a hand on his chest to stop him.
Pulling what appeared to be a leash from his belt, the man held Raeln firmly. “Either back in there or I’ll take you to your tent. You know no one gets to walk around at night without an escort. The head taskmaster’s orders.”
Raeln stared in shock at the leash, the enormity of what the wildling healer had gone through hitting him abruptly. He could not take his eyes off the leather strap, his mind barely grasping what this man intended.
“You leash them?” he asked numbly. “Do you whip them, too?”
“Them? What is wrong with you, wildling? You know the rules…” The human stopped talking and twisted Raeln’s arm to look at the bracelet he wore. The man’s eyes then went to Raeln’s claws.
“Even the children?” demanded Raeln, as the man reached for his sword. Raeln caught the man’s hand and slammed the sword back into its sheath, shoving the human against the wall of the building with his other hand. “Do you whip the children?”
“Only if they disobey,” the man gasped, looking around frantically. He took a deep breath to cry for help, but Raeln grabbed his jaw and thumped him against the wall, stunning him.
“When criminals get to enact the laws, everyone must become a criminal to save those too weak to help themselves. That is a quote from our king,” he told the human, then reached up and clasped the man’s head in both hands. He twisted hard, snapping the man’s neck loudly.
As the human’s body collapsed, Greth came around the side of the building holding his regular clothing. He stopped where he was, staring at the gasping body at Raeln’s feet.
“Good on you,” Greth said, then spit on the man. “Slavers deserve worse. I’m glad to see you’ve learned. You do know you’re no better than me now, right?”
“We’ll come back here when this is done. We’ll let Ilarra know about the army and do what we can to save the city…after that, I’ll tear this place down around them with my bare hands if I have to,” Raeln heard himself snarl as he began walking. He could barely believe it was his own voice, but he could not argue with the intent.
He had to believe that the king would agree with him. He simply could not accept the idea that he was disobeying the intent of the Lantonnian laws.
Chapter Six
“Admitting”
I have been approached in these last days by those seeking to convince me to give them permission to persecute or even execute those they feel are debasing themselves or their clan by admitting to caring for those “beneath” them.
These people that come to me, begging for my statement of disapproval, seek to define our people in terms of rigid ideals. They wish me to claim we are a human-founded empire, and thus, the benefits of the clans should go only to humans. They wish me to claim that because the tribes the clans were formed from would only accept relationships between people of the same age, skin color or patterning, and breed, then we should do the same. They wish me to tell my people how to love and how to live, to set a law for all time with regards to what we will permit. They expect that I will set the moral compass for more than thirty nations that now live under one banner.
A select few even expand this desir
e to have me declare myself a god for those who come after me to worship and my haphazard ramblings then declared holy writ. They believe this will ensure none deviates from the commands I give now.
I must now do as they ask and set forth a law about how we are to view those who are different or take a different view of how they wish to live their lives.
I hereby tell my people that they will follow their own hearts and make their own decisions. We were founded as a nation of wise people, seeking to make choices that were thought through, and I will not tell another man or woman who they are allowed to love or respect. As with all things in the clans, if a person can rationally explain their feelings and choices, who are we to say their wisdom is less than ours? We accept this as the law of these lands in all other matters, so why not these?
What I will deny is the forcing of one’s ways and beliefs on another. Whether this is by declaring their love to be forbidden or by enslaving them to your will, it makes no difference. We are a nation that gathers the wise into our embrace. Never has a man or woman accepted wisdom from a slave or from someone they consider their inferior.
We are not a human nation, though several of our founders were indeed human. We do not regard non-humans as anything less than humans, if my words carry any importance. Intelligence does not choose its form any more than you or I chose where, when, and under what circumstances we were born. Look to my council as an example and know that humans will never be the sole people in our lands. The council has worked with me to shape our future, and regardless of their gender, race, breed, relationships, culture of origin, or religion, they are the people I trust and revere above all others.
Also, I am not a god. I am a simple man, and I am dying. Any rational being would realize that precludes me from claiming divine power. I will never lie to my people and claim to be anything I am not. If I am your god, then your god lies on his deathbed this day.
- Later writings of Turess, now considered heretical. Invocation of this text is grounds for execution in Turessi by the all-human council.
Swearing loudly, Ilarra threw the staff across the small shop as she realized it was yet another much-hyped, wrong piece of wood. With each new shaped piece of dead tree, her temper had grown worse. This time she had snatched the staff out of the shop-owner’s hands in anger as soon as she saw it. A dozen shops prior, she had at least managed to calmly walk away when shown staves that were not the one she needed, but now she could not even manage to pretend she was not upset.
The shopkeeper shouted at Ilarra as she left the store, calling for help from the local guards. Ilarra ignored the old woman, trying to keep herself looking like she belonged as she moved into the crowds outside. If she ran, she knew every guard and well-meaning citizen in the area would chase her, but by walking, she would likely avoid notice.
Ilarra turned sharply down the first alley she passed as the city guards came running past on their way to the shop. She had learned after the last few run-ins not stop for any reason after drawing attention to herself. Each time, the guards responded faster even though she had gotten better at avoiding attention.
Making another quick turn, Ilarra moved back onto the wide streets and headed toward the two floor ramshackle building where she had been staying the last few days. The owner had been willing to accept the ornately stitched leather pouch Ilarra had been wearing for years as payment for a room. Given that her father had commissioned it for her as a present celebrating her entrance to the tower of magic, Ilarra found it a welcome thing to give up. There were memories it had brought back that she was happy to forget.
The room Ilarra entered was barely worthy of being called anything but a shack. Holes in the ceiling allowed the rain to trickle in, leaving stains and mildew across much of the outer wall. Even the window’s glass had fallen out sometime long before she had moved in, allowing the cool night breezes to enter, which she considered a good thing in the early fall but not something she was ready to deal with once the air cooled over the next few weeks.
Ilarra closed the door behind her, kicking it twice to get the warped boards back into the frame. She then turned and flopped on the only clean section of the floor, lacking any furniture to sit or sleep on. She had pushed herself day after day, trying to find the staff she knew to be in the city, but had come up empty every time. Without magic to sustain her, the few minutes of sleep she got each night was not enough to keep her going. All too often, she found herself forgetting to eat or sleep for a day or two, and became violently ill for days after that. Her body craved magic, not food and water, though without either, she was in sorry shape indeed.
Whatever changes her body had gone through to become like the Turessians, she no longer felt the normal announcements from her body as to what it needed. As far as she could tell, the magic was supposed to sustain her through anything, and her body had no idea how to deal with its absence. After almost three weeks of struggling with unpleasant surprises like the need to eat, Ilarra barely had the strength to go on. She needed her magic to return or Nenophar to reappear quickly.
In the last couple days, Ilarra had begun to feel the first twinges of her magic—or rather, the magic she had come to depend on—returning a little each day. Still, she guessed it would be a week or more before she could do much with it. It could be weeks or years before she was as strong as she had been before giving it up to stop Dorralt from controlling her. Worse still, she knew, without magic, she could not suppress it again, forcing her to wait until the magic and all of its risks returned before she could push it aside again. If Dorralt could control her in the interim, she would never have the chance to stop him again.
Ilarra sat up and brushed off her dress as she tried to stay awake. The dirt that accumulated on her dress and body had been another surprise, as she had not needed to bathe or clean her clothing in the months prior. From what she could tell, the Turessian magic that allowed her to appear as she saw herself also extended to keeping her clean. However she viewed herself was how she would appear, including cleanliness.
She could feel herself wavering and had to put one hand down on the floor to keep herself upright. Ilarra needed to sleep, but she could not bring herself to stop that long, especially with a lingering fear that, if she did sleep long, Dorralt or another Turessian might find her and kill or enslave her. Even more terrifying was the idea that enough magic might return to her body to let Dorralt in while she slept.
A creak outside her room snapped Ilarra’s attention to the door. She instinctively raised a hand to unleash flame on the doorway if necessary, but realized the motion was entirely meaningless without any magic to back it up. Wincing at her own foolishness, she searched around herself until she found a loose board from one of the collapsed pieces of furniture. Picking it up, Ilarra forced herself onto her feet and held the board at the ready in case someone did come through the door.
The hall remained quiet for several minutes, and Ilarra finally lowered the board, her exhausted muscles unable to hold it up any longer. With no sounds outside, she relaxed and leaned the board against the wall. She knelt and began to lie down to rest when the door burst inwards.
Two large shapes rushed into the room, one charging straight at Ilarra while the other stayed at the doorway to close them in with her. Ilarra barely got a glimpse of the men before the lead one had grabbed her and clamped his hands over her wrists to keep her from using magic against him. She struggled, but he was far stronger than her and easily held her down.
“Ilarra,” the man hovering over her said, “calm down. It’s us.”
Ilarra forced herself to relax—mostly for lack of anything she could do—and stared at the men, struggling to make sense of what was happening through the fog of not having slept in days. They were both large, burly men in barbaric clothing that spoke of a rough life. They were both wildlings…wolves.
Screaming angrily, Ilarra fought to free herself, wanting nothing more than to burn the men to ash with magic. They were savages and
had no right to touch her, and she shouted as much at them as she struggled with the man holding her. She kicked at his animal-like leg repeatedly, trying to get him to release his grip. She strained and cried as she fought to get away, knowing creatures like these would kill her with no warning…
Then, the world became clear to Ilarra again, and she realized that Raeln was the one holding her down, staring at her with absolute dismay. Behind him, Greth stood with both hands on the door, watching Ilarra as though she had gone mad, which she thought might not be entirely wrong.
“I…I’m sorry,” Ilarra admitted as she stopped fighting Raeln. “I didn’t know who you were for a moment.”
Raeln did not ease his grip in the slightest.
“You called us monsters and beasts,” Greth noted, clenching his jaw. “I think I heard ‘savage’ a few times, as well. I’d say you knew we were wildlings and you weren’t too happy about it.”
Ilarra looked up at Raeln, recognizing the worry in his eyes was not from her fighting him but because of what she had been saying. She could not even remember the words, but knew it had not been pleasant.
“Raeln, please listen to me,” she told him, shifting her position on the floor to make it clear she was not trying to get up anymore. “Greth never trusted me, but I need you to listen just this once. I don’t care what he’s told you about me…”