by G. Deyke
~*~
The next day Ty devours his breakfast ravenously, and twice calls to the innkeeper for another helping. He still looks a little pale, and I wonder if he must eat this much to recover his strength before tonight. I hope it will be enough.
“I shall stay in my room today,” he tells us. “I must rest, so that I may be at my full strength when I summon the demon.”
“And I as well,” says Mel. I can see her wringing her hands, although I try not to look at her. I doubt she will be resting. More likely she will be pacing her room, waiting eagerly for Therrin's death – and perhaps ours as well – but she cannot succeed, we must escape her.
I open my mouth and close it. I promised I would ask, but I am afraid to speak to her. I promised. That is all that makes me open my mouth again and say: “I have family in Quiyen. I would visit them, if you have no need of me today.” I do not look her way.
“Go, then,” she says, indifferent. “Don't be late tonight, or I shall be sure you regret it.”
I shiver. And to think, she threatened me so often these many years, and only now do I fear her for it! I never feared anything but my own foolish inability to obey her.
And I will be back tonight, punctually, and yet it shall be not to aid her but to betray her. I hold to that thought, and to the hope it brings. Tonight I leave Thilua. She cannot track me beyond the shores of this land.
It has been many years since I lived in Quiyen, and I am no longer quite certain how to find the place that was once my home. The city has changed, and I am taller now, and everything looks different. Also I have been trying for years not to think of Quiyen. Kiltha said Mother is sorry she sent me away; but I have been afraid to think of her at all, because whenever I did all I could remember was her angry despairing face that cast me away from my home and my family.
And now I am afraid to see her again, afraid to think of whether I still love her, afraid to think I may fear her more. And I am afraid to see them all, my family. But I promised I would, and here I am, searching this changed city for the home of my childhood.
It must be at least an hour before I find it. I descend into the tunnels, and for a moment I am overcome by the stench. It has been so long since we left Therwil that I forgot just how sickening these tunnels are. I must fight down the compulsion to vomit.
The journey has washed me nearly clean, with sand and sweat and sacred water, and now I am loath to tread in the filth that carpets the tunnel. I used to live here, I remember. And in Therwil I lived somewhere very much like this. But no longer: Ty has given me an escape, and I will use it, and I have no desire to carry this filth with me.
I will wash my feet, I decide. Perhaps I will wash myself all over. First I must visit my family, but then I will go to the sea and wash myself clean of all this filth.
The feel of it under my bare feet repels me, but I promised. Now that I have found the tunnel it is easy to find the set of rooms which my family calls home – it is all the same, just as though I were a child again. I slip inside and look around.
It is a little cleaner here than in the tunnel, though some of that filth has been tracked in on bare feet. There is no one in this first room, only a small pile of cloth and a few cracked dishes. Once my mother slept here, and Kiltha and I had the room on the left side, and Yuit and Silwen were in the room that lies straight ahead. I hear voices, there, and I see a dim light through my eyepatch. I follow these signs.
The room is so full of people that no one sees me at first. They are all here, though they have all grown older since I saw them last. Mother lies swathed in a large nest of blankets and clothing, perhaps asleep. Kiltha and Silwen and Yuit are sitting beside her, and beside Yuit is a stranger, a kretchin woman perhaps as old as he is – a few years younger than Ty, I guess – with a large frame and fair hair. I start at first, seeing her. I wonder who she is and what she is doing here, and then I remember: Yuit is married.
I stand watching them for a moment, my chest fluttering, thinking that I might still leave now without their notice; but then the stranger glances up at the door and gasps sharply. “Who,” she starts, and then she smiles suddenly, warm and open. “Are you Arri, then?”
Then they all look, and jump up, and surround me. “You did come,” cries Kiltha, and “Arri! You're alive! You're all right!” says Silwen, and I am overwhelmed with embraces from all sides.
I can say nothing. It is too much, all at once. I cling to them, to their long-forgotten scents and their comforting arms, and then tears are coursing down my right cheek, and I am sobbing, afraid of what I have lost, afraid of what may come to me.
I never want to leave this moment – not because it is wonderful, but because I am so afraid of what may follow it.
“It's all right, Arri,” Silwen tries to tell me, holding me close. I have grown, and so he seems much smaller than he was. I come up almost to his chin now. “It's all right. Calm down now. Mother won't be upset, I promise.”
How can he know this? How can he know that Mother is what I fear most here? But he does, and he holds me and ruffles my hair and slowly I calm down. The tears are gone now, replaced by a spasming chest and a sniveling nose.
“I'm ba – hic – back,” I say quietly through the thickness in my throat. “For now.”
“Good,” he says, and “Well met,” says Yuit, smiling. “Kera, this is Arri. Arri, this is Kera, my wife.”
Now that she is facing me, I can see that her belly is round with child. I look at her wide-eyed. I don't know what to say to her. I nod.
She smiles again. She looks very kind, and very friendly. I hope she will be a good mother to my brother's child. “I hope we can learn to know each other, now that you're here,” she says.
I shake my head quickly. “I'm not staying,” I tell them. “I have to – hic – I have to leave again tonight.”
“Whither?”
I shake my head again, uncertain. “I don't know.”
“Well, if you have the chance and you need a place to live, you're always welcome here,” says Silwen. “Come back any time.”
I nod, shrug. “Maybe, if I can,” I say. But I will never feel welcome in this place my mother cast me out of. And I can never find a home in Thilua again. Mel would find me.
“And where have you been until now?”
“Therwil,” I tell them.
“And you lived there? Alone?”
No. I relied on Mel so much. She helped me. She gave me food sometimes – not much, but even her scraps helped me – and she gave me a reason to live, to try to please her. But I cannot tell them this, and I do not want it to be true. I shrug, nod.
They don't believe me, I think – they want to, and they try to, but they can't. They are so surprised. They spent so much of my childhood looking after me, because I was witless and slow and always afraid, and so they cannot believe that I survived without them. But I am still the same as ever, witless and slow and afraid, and the only reason I lived this long was that I was lucky, and that Mel kept me alive (but I cannot be grateful to her, even for that). But now I will escape. Now I will be strong. Now, somehow, I will learn to live, to survive, even alone. I must.
They want to hear more. I don't like to tell stories, especially not about myself, and I don't want to tell them; but I give a brief account of how I was thrown into the well and how I survived there only by chance, and how I was rescued by a Desert clan and then brought to Therwil. I tell them nothing of Mel, nor of the reason for my presence in Quiyen now.
“See now, he's had quite a few adventures, even!” laughs Silwen. He seems so proud. They all do – proud that I am still alive, that I have some power left in me that they never saw, even if it has done nothing for me but to keep me alive. They even dare to say that perhaps Snake smiles beneath me. But my journey to Therwil was no adventure. It was only that there always seemed to be only one path left open to take, and I took it only after I had grown tired of waiting and doing nothing. I survived on luck alone. I don't deserv
e their pride.
I turn the conversation away from myself as soon as I can. I try to learn everything that has happened to them since I left, and everything that happened to Kera even before then. I wish her and Yuit the best of luck, and offer my hope that their child grow old and be healthy and happy, and that the birth be easy.
When my mother wakes and sees me, she seems to think that I am nothing more than a fancy of her fevered mind. But she cries openly at the sight of me. “Arri,” she says. “Arri, my child. I am sorry. Please, come back, come back to me.”
I am afraid to speak, still afraid that she will yell at me if she knows I am here, afraid she will cast me out again. But I hold her hand, and I stay by her side. I wish I dared to draw close and let her embrace me.
“Are you there?” she whispers, and I nod.
“Arri? You live?” But before I can answer, she turns away. Perhaps she is too fevered to speak with me. Perhaps it is only that she doesn't believe I am real.
“I hope you are better soon,” I tell her, but I have no great faith that she will live. I am so afraid: of losing her, of coming back to find her dead, of never seeing her again, of being cast out.
I wonder if it is good that I visited. I am glad to see my family again, but they stir up my memories, and I am so afraid.
I wish them all well and leave at last, still afraid that my mother may die, although I have not seen her in many years and fear her so much. I wish I could do something to help her, to help them, but there is nothing I can do. I am as helpless as always.
I wash myself off quickly in the sea before I return to the inn. My skin lightens by several shades as the dirt frees itself, and perhaps some of the kretchin stench leaves me. I may not be as clean as a noble when I return to the inn, but I am cleaner than I have been in years, and still wet, and the innkeeper glares as he sees me dripping on his wooden floor.
We eat our last meal together, and then we wait. We must wait until it is completely dark. Mel is impatient. She wants this over with as fast as possible, but Ty reminds her that Therrin will not be in the marketplace until it is late, and that he cannot summon the demon if there is anyone else still about. And so we wait.
There is nothing we can do in these few hours except to be sure that everything is ready and that we aren't forgetting anything, and to use the chamberpot a last time before we go, and to wait.
Ty is calm, outwardly at least. He lies in the bed with his arms crossed behind his head, waiting. I am more nervous. I sit against a wall, toying with my hands, trying to think of everything we must do tonight, and how we must do it, and what we might be forgetting.
“What if something goes wrong?” I ask.
“We can't plan for that without knowing what will go wrong, so we shall have to decide when and if it happens,” he says.
“And are you strong enough to summon the demon? After my eye?”
“It will be simple enough. I shan't die, certainly. But once it is summoned we shall have to run to the ship, as quickly as we can – it would help to know I may lean on you if I must.”
“Of course,” I promise.
And so we wait.
At last it is dark – at least, as dark as it will be tonight. The waning moon is high and bright in the sky, filling the city with its silvery violet light. I can see even through the eyepatch in this light, but all the same I pull it away as soon as I am able, when we are away from the eyes of the innkeeper and his patrons. Mel shies back as she sees the demon for the first time. There is something in her eyes, repugnance, even fear. A part of me is afraid to see fear in Mel's eyes; another part is glad to have some power over her at last, even just this. It is better than hitting her.
She does not speak to me again, and she stays back from me.
As we come to the empty marketplace, we see the child at once: a girl older than Kiltha but younger than myself, with long hair – the fairest I have ever seen, so light it is nearly white under the moon – coming down to her waist in waves. She sits on the low wall surrounding the large statue in the center of the square, facing away from it and from us. I can hardly see her behind the statue, only that she is kicking her feet idly.
“Is that she?” Mel whispers.
Ty shrugs. “It must be.”
“Then go – kill her!”
“I need Arri's help,” he says, “– so he and I shall stand behind the statue and summon the demon there. It might be better if you stayed back a ways, so that the conjury does not hurt you if I should lose control.”
“I certainly hope you won't be losing control.”
“So do I – but it is better to be careful, no? Now come, Arri, and be sure she does not see you.”
I follow him to the statue, nervously. At first I think Mel will follow, but she clings to the shadowed alley we arrived by, watching us as closely as she can from that distance. The child seems not to notice us at all. Then we are safe behind the statue, hidden from her eyes.
I want to whistle to Snake, but I am afraid to make so loud a noise. Instead I purse my lips and breathe the sound of the whistle, leaving my tongue too low for the sound to come out. It is the closest thing I can have.
“Do you really need my help for this?” I ask as quietly as I dare.
“Not for the conjury,” he breathes back; “but if you can use your nature talent to make a fissure in the ground, so that the flower cannot reach us as easily, please do so.”
“I will try,” I promise doubtfully, “but I don't think I shall be able.”
“Then try.”
Now he takes a small pouch from his belt and hands it to me. “Here are the twenty gold she gave me to kill Therrin's mother. I have no doubt she will notice something is wrong before I am done; when she does, please throw her this pouch. She has more right to it than I, and it may distract her.”
I don't like the idea of giving her anything, but I nod.
“What will the demon do, if not kill her?” I ask.
“Distract her,” he whispers back. “For fifteen minutes. That must last us. Now let me work, and be sure she does not touch me until I am finished.”
I nod. I stand a little beside him, where I can see him and Mel both, holding the bag of gold. I close my eye and fix my attention on the cobbled ground before us, trying with all my strength – in vain – to crack it. Through my left, ever-open eye I watch Ty, and I watch Mel.
He draws a symbol in the air, and then another; and then he takes out the blue ribbon of Mel's that I gave him, and holds it before him. He draws another symbol.
Now Mel watches us more carefully, her eyes narrowed, wearing an air of puzzled dismay. Her mouth moves silently; then it seems she grasps what it is Ty is using as a focus, for her eyes open wide with alarm. She screams, loud and shrill: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? NO! STOP! STOP HIM!”
The scream hurts my ears and pierces my mind. I stop trying to split the ground – all my efforts have had no effect at all – and instead throw the bag of gold her way. She makes no move to catch it, and it bursts open as it hits the ground, spilling a small shower of coins.
I can see Ty pausing briefly as he hears her shrill cry, but now he goes on to draw another symbol as though he cannot hear her. Perhaps he draws more quickly than he did before, but his hand is firm.
Mel glances at the scattered coins, and then she runs toward us. I silently beg Ty to finish quickly. I am so afraid to oppose her. Yet I stand before him, more afraid of what might happen if she tries to kill him before he is done.
As she runs she takes a pouch from her belt and empties a fine gray powder into her hand. She runs up to us, and she grips my arm to hold me still, and she puts her hand with the powder on my shoulder. I try to shrink back and to struggle and to break free of her, but she holds me fast.
“Arrek Suyiol,” she hisses. She holds me there for another moment, staring at me with the purest loathing in her eyes. “I lay this curse on you, that you may never forget how you wronged me.”
Her fingers
dig into my shoulder painfully. I look at her, too stricken with fear to do anything else.
Now at last she releases me, throwing me back. I stumble backward, trying to hold my footing. The powder on my shoulder shakes loose and falls to the ground.
“I swear by Great Haryin, and on my life, that I will see you both dead – nay, you three, you filthy, niddering, dastardly betrayers, you cowardly scum, you ill-conceived bastards, sons of kretchin and daughters of whores! It matters not whither you flee; I will find you, and I will kill you, all of you, with mine own hand!”
She goes on like this for some time, threatening us and defaming us in every way she can think of, and all the while she backs away, slowly, step by step.
I don't know whether to feel afraid or victorious.
Now Ty draws a final symbol, and the demon begins to take shape before him. “Tch,” he says. “Think of your language, little flower. Be glad your tutors cannot hear you.”
“You shall die for this!” she screams again, and then she turns and runs, fleeing into the dark streets. The demon follows her.
The gold lies forgotten.
This time Ty does not fall; but he does seem very tired, and a little unsteady on his feet. I follow him around the statue to Therrin. The girl has stood up now, perhaps at the sound of Mel's screaming, and she eyes us suspiciously.
Ty shows her a chain, a necklace, with a carven jewel in the shape of a teardrop. It looks black in the moon's wan light, yet – perhaps because of the demon in my eye – I know that it would be red by sun- or firelight.
“My mother's,” she says. “You're –”
“No time now,” Ty cuts her off. “Follow me.” And he totters off toward the port. If he was intending to run, he has failed; but he goes as quickly as he can, weak as he is. Therrin and I follow.
She looks at me curiously as she walks, clasping her mother's chain about her neck. She is a slender girl with thin wrists and a pointed chin. Her cheekbones are high, her eyebrows thin and arched. From the painting Mel had of him, I can see Kerheyin's green eyes in hers, and they look at my glowing demon-eye with interest.
“You're with him, too? You're both saving me?”
I nod.
“I'm Therrin,” she says. “Thank you both for not killing me.”
I nod again. I would tell her that Ty is saving me as well, but the victory is too fresh. I do not want to think of Mel nor of what I escaped nor how, nor of the death she has promised us all.
“What's your name?” she asks, tilting her head a little to the side.
I open my mouth to answer her, and then I stop.
“Arri,” I want to say, but Mel called me by that name, so often. It was the name I gave her, for I had been known by it long before I first left Quiyen, but now I cannot think it in any voice but hers. And I don't want to be Arri any longer. I am stronger now, strong enough to betray her, strong enough to run.
“Arrek,” I tell her. “My name is Arrek Suyiol.”
~*~