by Hal Emerson
Chapter Twelve: Out of Banelyn
They made it easily through the stables as no one had thought to guard them, and then quickly through the hidden door (Tomaz simply threw a shoulder into it and it crumpled inward) and up the wall. Coming down the other side was harder - the Prince was so tired, and the places on his wrists where he had fought his bonds and the metal had dug into the skin quickly began to burn and ache. When he was still a good ten yards above the rooftop, his hands gave out, and he fell backwards. Luckily, Tomaz had gone down first - how he had squeezed into the space, the Prince had no idea, but squeeze he had - and the big man caught him before he tumbled to his death over the side of the building.
From there it was easy work. The guards inside the walls had been alerted, but the Outer City was mostly silent. As the Prince had predicted, they’d all been drawn to the main gates, and the Seeker’s Path remained open.
They found their way down to the ground level, and as they passed through the city, they picked out a few pairs of clean Commons clothing, drying on tightly stretched bits of thin rope the Exiles called a clothesline. The Prince, very gratefully, shed his filthy clothing, even his undergarments, and changed them all for fresh cotton replicas. To his surprise, he was quite excited to pull on the new Commons pants and shirt. They certainly weren’t his Prince robes, but they were comfortable, and provided good mobility, which would help him in this escape.
“Princeling,” Tomaz rumbled.
The Prince turned, and saw the big man was holding a hammer he’d found in an equipment rack. The big man motioned for him to approach, and the Prince did. Tomaz held the Prince’s hands over a low stone wall, and deftly swung the hammer once, twice, thrice. There was a loud clatter of metal, and then the shackles fell away, and the Prince was free. For a long moment they all stood, frozen, waiting to see if anyone had heard the noise. But when no alarm was raised, a hand tapped the Prince on the shoulder, and he turned to see the girl holding up the smaller of the waterskins and a tiny cake of Tomaz’s soap.
“Wash those cuts.”
“No, I’m fine,” the Prince responded.
“Do it,” the girl insisted.
“We can do it when we’re safe away from here,” the Prince insisted, feeling she was being completely unreasonable.
“We can do it now,” she said, eyeing him dangerously, “when we don’t have Imperials right on top of us. I’m not saving you just so you die in a week from infection.”
“We’ll have time later.”
“Just wash the cuts.”
“Make me,” the Prince retorted.
“Are you seven? Just wash them!”
“No!”
The girl seized the waterskin, but the Prince refused to let go, and the result was they ended up nose-to-nose glaring at each other.
“Save the foreplay for later,” rumbled Tomaz, “we’re escaping right now.”
A beat passed, and then both of them dropped the skin, which the big man caught and tied to his waist. He turned and vaulted himself over the wall that surrounded the garden, a huge moving patch of darkness, with the Prince and the Exile girl close behind, very pointedly not looking at each other.
They made their way through the Outer City, and circled around to the Roarke road, heading south. The haphazard, rundown backstreets of the Outer City turned once more to wide, smooth paving stones, and their pace picked up. Soon they were past the last houses and shops, and crossing the large grassy area that surrounded the city to the south. A wind sprang up behind them and brought sounds of pursuit - but they were far away now, and the cries were fading as they left the city. The road began to twist and turn, making its way through a series of small hills. They were all panting for breath now, and the Prince felt as though his heart might fail from sheer exhaustion. But somehow he found the energy to carry on, until they’d gotten far enough away and left the road altogether. Tomaz and the Exile girl slowed then, and the Prince followed them as they headed toward a series of larger hills covered in trees - pine trees. The smell of them came to the Prince, and his mind was cast back to the journey they’d made through the Elmist Mountains. That journey had been defined by his need to escape from the same Exiles who were now his one chance of survival. If he had been more rested, he might have appreciated the irony of the situation.
They came to a stop on a grassy hillside at the tree line of a forest from which they could just see Banelyn in the distance. They stood there for a moment, catching their breath, the Prince barely able to stand. Tomaz disappeared off into the forest, and the Prince took one step to follow and then almost fell to the ground. He wished they still had that horse, even if he had to be tied on to it again. As if in answer to his prayers, Tomaz emerged from the wooded glen leading the very same packhorse the Prince had stolen and taken into the city.
“How … how?” he asked weakly.
“While she was following you, I followed the horse,” Tomaz said simply. “He’s a good horse. Wouldn’t want to lose him.”
While she was following him. After a long moment, the Prince turned to the Exile girl, who was staring out at the distant city.
“I don’t know your name,” he said bluntly, the fact that he was still trying to catch his breath making his voice more curt and formal than he’d intended. “Tell me your name.”
The girl turned to him and raised an eyebrow. The Prince looked at her for a long moment, then swallowed, took a deep breath, and spoke again.
“Would you please tell me your name? I would like to know it.”
“I’ve heard that question before somewhere,” she said dryly, “though I vaguely remember being the one to ask it.”
The Prince nodded. And then, on sudden impulse, he took a step forward, drawing the dagger she’d lent him. She tensed, but he ignored that. She had every right to be wary of him – for that matter, she had every right to hit him upside the head and leave him unconscious to meet his fate, the way he’d done to her. But he didn’t strike her with the dagger, as she must have feared - instead, he offered it to her.
“I apologize for the way I acted,” he said. Part of him was watching with disbelief at what he was doing, but the larger part of him felt that this was right. She had saved his life, even though he had given her no reason to. There was honor in this, and justice, in a way that was separate from the laws of the Empire. This was something between the two of them. This was a debt he had to repay – and this was the least he could do to fulfill that obligation.
“Thank you for lending this to me,” he said, holding the dagger up in two hands. “And thank you for coming for me of your own free will.”
He turned and nodded his head to Tomaz.
“Both of you, of course.”
Tomaz nodded and smiled. The Prince turned back to the girl, and watched her face, wondering what her reaction would be. For a long moment she stared at the dagger, and then looked up into his face.
“I don’t either,” she said.
The Prince wondered idly if she had been hit in the head and he hadn’t noticed. He would have wondered harder, but his brain was tired of working, and idle was all he had to work with it at the moment.
“Don’t … what?” he asked, trying to understand.
“Don’t kill people unless I have to,” she said quietly, piercing him with her green eyes. The Prince drew a sharp breath as he remembered her reaction to him when he had said that. He opened his mouth to respond, but then shut it. He didn’t know what to say, and so, as Tomaz had recommended on the day they’d met, he would say nothing at all.
“We need to move,” Tomaz rumbled from behind him. The girl broke her gaze away from him and nodded to Tomaz, then turned back to the Prince.
“Keep the dagger,” she said, “you might still need it. We aren’t out of this yet.”
She began to walk away without answering his original question, and the Prince’s heart sank. It was understandable though. He was probably the last person she wanted in her debt. And w
hy would she trust him with her name? He had betrayed her, and so had no right to know her. He slid the dagger into the belt of his borrowed clothing and looked out at the city again, trying to hide his disappointment.
“Leah,” she said.
He turned back around, and saw that she was still facing away from him, her back tensed in a way that told him the answer had come on its own, slipping unrehearsed through clenched teeth and iron jaw.
“My name is Leah Goldwyn.”
The Prince swallowed to work moisture into his throat before responding.
“Thank you, Leah Goldwyn, for saving my life. I am in your debt.”
As he fell silent, she made her way to the horse. The Prince turned to Tomaz.
“And thank you also, Tomaz. I am in your debt as well. Thrice over, it would appear.”
Tomaz inclined his head solemnly, accepting the Prince’s statement. The big man’s eyes followed him as he turned once more to look out at the city.
“You were telling the truth,” the Prince said blankly. “And this time there can be no doubt. The Seeker told me, before he locked me away. Told me everything about the assassination, about what my….”
He fell silent, the line of thought trailing off, as what he had meant to say hung in the air, whole and complete even though he hadn’t finished it: about what my Mother had commanded. He felt more than saw the Exiles exchange a glance. After a moment of tension, the Prince heard Leah clear her throat noisily.
“Come on,” she said, the barest hint of softness creeping into her voice. She cleared her throat again, roughly this time, as the Prince turned back toward them, his eyes focused on the ground.
“We won’t be alone for long,” she said. “Word will go out soon and we’ll be followed. No doubt they’re still investigating the Inner City, assuming we couldn’t get past the gates. But eventually they’ll realize we escaped, or that Seeker will wake up and put the pieces together. I think we can anticipate scouting parties within the hour, though I don’t think they’ll range very far from the city initially. We need to get far away from Banelyn, get around the western side of Lake Chartain, and disappear into the wilderness for a while. They never patrol alone – there’s always three groups that – ”
It was Tomaz who cleared his throat this time, and she broke off, pink spots of emotion appearing on her cheeks. The Prince had the distinct feeling she was eternally grateful when Tomaz looked away. He understood: she was uneasy, and coping for it by talking too much about things that didn’t need to be discussed.
“We’ll leave once we’ve caught our breath,” the big man said to her. Leah began to move off, but suddenly went down on one knee with a low moan of pain. The Prince moved toward her in alarm, but it was Tomaz who reached her first and calmly picked her up and brought her back into the center of the tangled den of trees with a look of fond concern.
“What happened?” the Prince asked, unable to keep a note of fear from his voice.
“Concerned for me, princeling?”
The Prince, despite the teasing tone of her voice, reached out through the Raven Talisman and felt for her life –
- swirls of green and silver light – the sound of steel cutting silk – the silent second after a symphony ends – the smell of newly trodden dust – old pain – grim laughter, quiet wonder –
He pulled back; she was whole …wounded she might be, but she was strong and would recover. He looked her over completely, and saw a small patch of blood on her side. The big man saw it at the same time and spoke.
“Ribs?” Tomaz asked her, quietly.
“Surface slice,” she said, “just need a stitch or two.”
“Then we’ll do it now,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “We are far enough away to spend the next few hours here. They need to finish searching the city and the surrounding towns before they come for us. And if we’re lucky, Trudy will send them north for a time.”
“Trudy?” the Prince asked.
“The Seekers aren’t the only ones who have contacts throughout the Empire,” Tomaz rumbled quietly.
“Fine - but only if the princeling washes those cuts on his wrists. And binds them too - tightly. Check the older wounds too – make sure they’re healing.”
The Prince nodded, watching her closely. They locked eyes again, and after a moment Leah nodded too. They slowly made their way further into the woods, Tomaz helping Leah when she needed it, and soon came on a woven thicket created out of a large grove of trees and bushes that had grown together, creating a natural, living cave. The three of them managed to prod the horse through the briars, where they found the second horse, Tomaz’s charger, already tied to a tree, cropping the grass. Tomaz quickly backtracked to cover up their trail, and then they unrolled some blankets and collapsed on the hard ground. Tomaz went to his pack, moving quickly but with a calm assurance. He threw a second blanket to the Prince as he pulled out a needle and thread and began a small fire to heat water.
“Wash those cuts quickly and then get some sleep,” he said. “I will wake you when it is time to move.”
Like an automaton, the Prince took the small cake of soap and the waterskin and scrubbed his wrists before wrapping them in strips of cloth. He pulled up his shirt to check the wounds he’d received fighting the Death Watchmen and saw they were healing into fine, puckered lines. He then dropped the soap and skin next to the saddlebags, and curled up in the blanket at the base of a large gnarled oak tree, and fell into a dark, dreamless, sleep.
When he woke again, feeling warm and comfortable, a glowing heat pressing against the side of his body, he wondered distantly where he was. Slowly, very slowly, he opened his eyes.
Above him was a canopy of branches that formed a tight web. He turned his head and saw Tomaz stroking a fire. He tried to rise, but his body decided not to obey him, and he fell back down again.
“Rest while you can, princeling,” Tomaz said without looking up. “You’ve been asleep for barely an hour. We have time yet before we have to move, and we have a long journey ahead of us. Best to rest as much as possible.”
“Aren’t we being pursued?” the Prince asked, alarmed. “Why did you light a fire? Won’t they be able to track us by the smoke?”
Tomaz grinned and shook his head, and the held a finger to his lips. The Prince fell silent and listened … and heard soft rain falling outside their small living cave. The canopy of trees above them was so tightly woven that none of the water was falling around them.
“Clouds rolled in while you slept, and the wind is blowing more south in our direction. Besides, soon we will be followed in earnest no matter what we do, and there will be no chance for the comfort of a fire. I thought it would be best for us all to have a small one while we still could.”
The Prince sat for a moment, wrapped in the blanket, and then with a sudden deliberateness managed to stand. Tomaz looked at him quizzically. Determinedly, the Prince walked forward and sat down at the fire across from the big man. He heard Tomaz sigh.
“So much hardness,” he rumbled sadly, “so much effort to cover up your pain instead of letting it flow as it is meant to.”
“I’m not in pain,” the Prince said firmly. He was proud his voice didn’t shake.
“You are in pain,” Tomaz contradicted with the same indescribable sadness in his voice, “and that makes me frightened for you.”
“You do not need to be frightened for me,” the Prince said, his voice formal and stiff. “But your concern is noted, and I thank you.”
Tomaz stood and rounded the fire. The Prince watched him out of his peripheral vision as he was trained to do. Watch without giving the impression of watching, his sister Dysuna had always told him. The big man stopped next to the Prince, and lowered himself to the ground to sit next to him. The Prince tensed as if expecting a blow, and the move did not go unnoticed.
“Too much hardness can kill you, princeling,” the Exile said.
“Hardness does not kill you,” the P
rince responded, reciting by rote what he had been told since birth. “Weakness is death, feeling is death. Life happens to you, and you cannot change what has happened. You harden yourself, and eventually you feel nothing – and then you cannot be challenged. You cannot be defeated. You cannot -”
The Prince’s throat seized up and he broke off.
“You don’t think it is hard to be weak?” Tomaz asked quietly.
The Prince opened his mouth to respond, but shut it again with a snap.
“You do not agree that it is difficult to be weak? It was difficult for me to learn to be weak, that much I can tell you.”
The man was a small mountain. He – weak? The Prince found the idea laughable.
“You are not weak,” the Prince scoffed, “don’t think that I can be caught off guard by simple lies.”
The Prince realized that he was being curt and surly for no reason, that his good humor of barely an hour ago had somehow dried up and disappeared. Why was he acting this way?
“What need do I have to lie to you?” Tomaz asked, quietly, insistently.
“Because you’re an Exile,” the Prince snapped back, rising to his feet. “You’ve rebelled against your true rulers, you’ve sworn to overthrow the very Empire that provides safety and stability to the common man – you’re a criminal! Criminals lie.”
The Prince moved swiftly to the opposite side of the fire, and looked out into the thicket of trees, not wanting to see the Exile.
“A criminal who has saved your life,” Tomaz said.
A chill ran up the Prince’s back. What was he trying to say here? Was he trying to blackmail the Prince? With a surge of adrenaline he spun and looked down at the big man, still seated by the fire, and drew himself up to his full height, expecting Tomaz to be sitting there with a sinister smile, waiting to capitalize on his debt.
But what the Prince saw, a bluff, honest, kind man, deflated his anger and righteousness. Suddenly, his vision went hazy, and he had to look down at the ground.
His siblings would never have come to his rescue even once. Tomaz had saved him three times now, once even nursed him back to health in the middle of the Empire where he was a wanted man.
Help is a sign of weakness, weakness a sign of unworthiness. His Mother would never have come to….
The Prince’s mind blanked out before he could finish the treasonous thought. He began to count the leaves under his feet, and narrowed his hearing in on the cracking and popping sounds of the fire, unable to face his thoughts and so seeking mercy in the simplicity of sensation.
“You are not weak because you needed help. You are not weak because you are grateful,” the insistent rumbling voice said. The Prince shrugged his shoulders as if he could throw off the voice like it was an irritating fly, nothing more.
“I know I am not weak,” the Prince said.
“You are not listening to me,” the big voice said. “You are not weak because you needed help. You are not weak because you are grateful.”
“You already said that. I know this. I’ve already acknowledged my debt.”
But the Prince couldn’t look Tomaz in the face. He continued to stare at the ground, trying to count leaves, trying to set his mind on autopilot, trying to stop himself from thinking. Thinking and feeling.
“Of course,” Tomaz said. “But you are not weak because you needed help. You are not weak because you are grateful.”
The Prince coughed to clear his throat, and felt an arm wrap around his shoulders.
“There you go,” the big man said, “there you go.”
And then the Prince was crying. Tears ran down his face, and silent sobs wracked his body. His forehead was buried in the big man’s enormous chest and hands bigger than the Prince’s head were patting him gently on the back, ruffling his hair with calm affection.
“I t-tried so hard,” he choked out, the words coming through a throat almost closed up with the emotion he had tried so hard to contain. “I d-did what th-they expected of me, at l-least I t-tried, but t-they st-st-still didn’t w-want me – ”
At this point, he could say no more, and he broke down into sobs that shook his entire body. He clung to Tomaz as he had never been allowed to cling to another human being in his life – as he had never let himself cling to another human being.
“I know,” was all Tomaz said, “I know. I know.”
The Prince didn’t know how long they stood there, at the edge of the fire, but eventually he became aware of the quiet in the air around them, punctured only by the pattering sound of falling rain. Suddenly he felt suffocated by the big man’s nearness and pushed away abruptly, walking around the fire, trying to put something between the two of them. He felt eyes on him and he reluctantly turned again to look at Tomaz.
The big man was looking at him with a strange curiosity, as if something he hadn’t anticipated had just taken place, something that had kindled a fire in his small black eyes, and left an earnest look of affection on his face.
“Why don’t you take a name?” the big man rumbled.
The Prince immediately felt himself close back up again, tensing, shutting down. He looked away with a sharp twist of his head, and when he looked back Tomaz was now staring into the fire, as if it was only a friendly question. He seemed just as interested in following the shifting, changing flames as he did in the Prince’s answer. As the silence lengthened, Tomaz looked back up at the Prince politely. Chips of dark black stone – not eyes. But there was a light in them – a light that was greater than the reflection of the fire.
“I have no name,” the Prince said finally. He was surprised to find that the pride was gone from the statement; there was no defiance in it now. He supposed Tomaz would have seen through it in any case.
“You sound sad,” the big man replied bluntly.
“I have no name,” the Prince repeated wryly. It felt strange to talk about this. Why had he brought the subject up? Was he trying to convince the Prince of something?
“Neither did I,” said Tomaz, “when I left the Fortress.”
“What?”
Tomaz, still staring calmly into the fire, reached up and slowly undid his cloak, removed his shirt, and then the ties holding his breastplate on. These he gently laid to the side, and then he removed his leather jerkin, and finally a close-fit woven tunic to leave him bare-chested. He rose, his enormous muscles rippling in the firelight, and turned his back on the Prince.
Involuntarily, the Prince recoiled and drew in a sharp breath. Spreading across Tomaz’s shoulders and back was an enormous seven-pointed star, tattooed in blue and white ink with sparkling diamond flecks that shimmered and shone in the reflected light of the fire.
It was the sign of a Blade Master, the most elite force of Fortress Guardians. Guardians were never seen outside of the Fortress unless they were in the presence of the Children, and Blade Masters were rarely ever seen outside of the company of the Empress herself unless it was for a mission of utmost importance that could be entrusted to no one else.
“How … how?” the Prince managed to get out. It was the last thing the he had expected: to find the most glorious and feared symbol of the Empire’s power here among the trees and wilderness, so far from the Fortress. It left his mind reeling.
“I left the Fortress nearly twenty years ago now, give or take a few,” the Exile said. He began to pull his tunic back over his head, calmly and with his customary assurance of movement. The same flowing movement the Prince had seen all of his life among the Guardians of the Fortress. How had he so easily dismissed that before?
“I had been a member of the Guard for five years before I was given a Summons to enter the presence of the Empress herself.”
Five years? thought the Prince in amazement. It was unheard of for a Guardian to be summoned that soon. There were precious few who were summoned before they had served ten years, maybe even fifteen.
“When I came into the throne room, my superiors were there, and every Blade Master then living
. I was invited forward, told to kneel before the Empress by her Hand, and then she laid a single finger on my forehead.”
He seated himself again by the fire, once more fully dressed.
“I was told later that what she did was called delving, that she was examining me for the qualities of a Blade Master. All I remember was her nodding, and then I was given over to the Blade Masters, who took me and tested me themselves. Seven days of testing.”
The big man paused and a grimace passed over his face. The Prince couldn’t imagine what had been terrible enough of a test to make this man cringe at the memory, but he had heard rumors of the testing and knew that some did not survive it.
“I passed, though I felt at the time I would rather have failed. It would have been less painful. My first assignment came soon after. I was the star pupil of the elder Blade Masters, and they gave the assignment to me so that I could prove myself in the eyes of the Empress.”
He paused for a moment, and his face darkened.
“The assignment was an assassination, of a man living in Lucien not too far outside the Fortress.”
Assassination? Why would they give that to a Guardian? Assassinations were carried out by the Death Watchmen, and as far as the Prince had known, by them alone.
“As you’d guess, I was surprised, but as I was then I did not question it. If the Empress and my fellow Blade Masters believed the assignment important, then it was important. I was told that it was a matter of security for the Fortress, that this man had uncovered secrets that were dangerous to the Empire, and that the man himself was too dangerous for even the Death Watch to deal with. I did my job too well – I killed the man before he even knew I was there. Perhaps if I had let him speak, I would have realized my error sooner and prevented a tragedy.
“For weeks, something did not sit right with me. I was short tempered, I became angry at the servants, I felt uneasy about my actions. So, using my newly acquired rank as Blade Master, I went and discovered the truth of the man’s crime.”
Pain and harshness entered his voice.
“It was no crime, not at all. Not to me at least.”
He gazed out over the fire into the memory of that day, reliving it there by the fireside. Deep lines of sorrow and regret settled over his face, and the Prince saw then the Blade Master that Tomaz had been, saw it in his empty stare, and his loss of laughter.
“I had sworn to protect the safety of the Empress, and through her the Empire and the stability of the Diamond Throne. I was perfectly suited to the role of a Guardian. And what was more, unlike many I was convinced of the rightness of the cause. The justice.”
He turned his head to look at the Prince.
“I was wrong. It was not justice that I performed, but injustice. The things I have seen, the things I have had explained to me that the Empress and the Children have done, that the Empire allows to happen …”
Words seemed to fail him, and the pain turned to anger.
“When I left the Fortress, I was detected and followed. I killed the men following me, and soon I was pursued by those who had once been my sworn brothers. For weeks, I fought my way across the Empire, running and hiding, and fighting when I needed to. In the end, I was found nearly dead by the Exiled Kindred. They took me in, hid me from the Empire. I didn’t join them at first; I was too blinded by my old prejudices. But soon I saw that what the Empire had claimed to be, the Kindred actually were. They kept me safe from the Order, which to this day maintains that I am dead. That I must be, for they failed to find me in the end.
“My name was taken from me during the flight. The Empress renounced me, and it was then that I almost gave up and lost hope. I still cannot remember myself as that person, for, as you know, once a name is taken, no one can remember it much less say it. But in the end, once enough time had passed, I took a new name, one that I chose for myself. I chose a new name, and I chose a new path, not one that I was selected for, but one I selected for myself.”
His gaze turned to the Prince.
“You are freed from the Children and the Empress. It is your choice what to do now. Your choice, and yours alone.”
It was a long time before the Prince spoke.
“You speak as if I am no longer one of the Children.”
“I do,” was the response. Simple as it was, it spoke volumes.
“They are my family,” the Prince whispered.
“Your family,” Tomaz responded, “in name and blood alone. They have severed their ties with you, regardless of your wishes. And now you are free to choose your own life, to choose your own family. To choose who and what you wish to be.”
The Prince remained silent for a long moment, and then seated himself by the fireside next to the unconscious form of Leah. Her words came back to him.
“Not with this curse around my neck,” he said quietly, fingering the black marks over his shoulders through the cotton of his shirt.
“It is only a curse if you believe it to be,” the big man rumbled. He rose to his feet, circled the fire, and draped one of the extra blankets over the Prince’s shoulders. The ex-Blade Master’s rough hands were surprisingly gentle.
“Now sleep,” he said. “We have a long day ahead of us. I will wake you when we need to leave.”
“I thought you said I was free to make my own choices,” the Prince said with a wry smile.
“Only when I say you can,” came the sardonic, rumbling retort.
The Prince sat staring into the fire for a while, his mind turning over the conversation and the Exile’s story, as Tomaz settled himself once more on the other side of the fire.
“Free,” he whispered to himself. His mind returned to his daydreams in the Fortress, where he had imagined what it would be like to go to the places where the sun shone and the wind blew. Where things were green and water flowed in rivers.
“Free,” he said again, tasting the word as he said it, trying to understand how it felt in his mouth, how it felt to say it. The implications …
The Prince looked over at Tomaz and spoke openly.
“I have no chosen path, no way forward … it’s terrifying.”
“Freedom always is.”