A Home in the Hills

by Robert J. Crane

  He waded through the grass, asking—

  “When?”

  “Not today.” His father. The voice echoed, as if it came across a cavernous room. “When you’re older.”

  Jasen craned around to see the mountains, mottled brown and streaked with vegetation. He couldn’t make out the nimble goats he’d come to watch later, moving deftly between impossible rocks and perches. He did not see the mists at the base either, condensing as the cool night air blew around the vast domes.

  Nor did he see smoke rising from the cratered mountain. But then, of course he would not. This dream—or memory—it was at least a dozen years old. The mountain showed no sign of was to come.

  Back to wading through the grass.

  Damn it, why wouldn’t he just look up at his mother?

  He held her hand in his left, his father’s in his right.

  He longed to see her face …

  But he only waded onward, deeper into the long grasses, parents at his sides.

  “Swing me again,” he asked.

  “Very well,” said his father. “You ready?”

  “Yeah!”

  “One … two …”

  Each count, his mother and father swung their hold forward, then back … and then on three, the two of them lifted at the same time, and Jasen flew, arcing in their arms, legs kicking through the grass, laughing, the blue sky overhead—and there was so much love here, suffusing the air, he could feel it coming from them—

  And then the dream ended.

  He was in bed. The candle in the lamp had run right down—it would need replacing again; blasted things didn’t last long at all—and it only cast a frail light into the room.

  The bedcovers were a mess.

  Alixa had come back at some point. Jasen’s sleep didn’t appear to have disturbed her. But he’d dozed off so late, he thought, probably well after sundown at the height of summer. She was probably exhausted from whatever it was she’d been doing all day.

  She lay in her clothes, her back to him. A little sliver of cover remained about her, a corner that had entangled her hips and ended up coiling about her, like she was an anchor, holding it in place while Jasen tossed and turned, slowly beading with sweat and his clothes sticking to him.

  So damned hot.

  He rose, his clothes and hair plastered to him with sweat.

  Better get some air.

  He stepped past Scourgey—Niamh. She was sleeping too, making that throaty half-snore that indicated she’d fallen into the deepest stages of slumber. Then, easing the door open gently, he slipped out, closing it with a gentle click beside him.

  He’d counted the turns leading to and from his quarters. So he reversed it in his head, moving in the direction of the deck.

  He still got turned around.

  Frowning, and now having lost track of where his and Alixa’s room was, he tried to just follow along in the right direction. How had he got it so wrong? Probably sleepiness; he hoped the fresh air would wash away the fogginess that engulfed him.

  Eventually, he found the staircase and climbed it out onto the war galley’s upper deck.

  The sun hadn’t yet risen, but it was on its way: the thinnest sliver of orange lit the horizon to the east. With so little light available, the ship and waters almost blurred; leaning over the side, Jasen could pick out the edge of the boat but just barely.

  The Lady Vizola’s crew were hard at work already. More deck-scrubbing was in progress. A handful of Prenasians and a single troll kept close eyes upon the crew. The troll sat upon its great backside, in its hand a cane, a long, thin one almost the full length of a human man.

  Burund and Kuura had been folded back into the cleaning crew. They might be split off later, Jasen thought, when it was light enough to patch sails.

  Kuura was close to Jasen. He caught the boy’s eye as he stepped onto the deck. Bent double over a wire-bristled brush, he inclined his head in a tiny nod.

  Jasen nodded back. He considered approaching, saying something—not that there would be a great deal he could say—“sorry” didn’t exactly cut it—but that hulking troll wasn’t brandishing a cane for no reason. A step out of line by any of the Lady Vizolans, and it would come swinging down in a blur, cutting through the pre-dawn air with a whip crack.

  Rakon appeared from ahead. “Jasen?” He stuck a hand over his eyes, as though the sun were bright overhead and in need of blocking. Setting eyes upon him, he said, “What is a ward of Lord Longwell of Reikonos doing out here by himself?”

  “Uhm …” Cooling off was the answer, of course. After yesterday’s speech though, apparently specifically to Jasen and the few other speakers of Luukessian, it would be a great show of impertinence for Jasen to announce that he’d excused himself from his lord’s command for a brief respite.

  “He—Lord Longwell,” he corrected quickly, “sent me up on deck. I’m on a break.” A bare-faced lie, and a bad one at that, but too late; it was out of his mouth now.

  Rakon meandered over, stepping between Chaka and Medleigh as though they were not there.

  “On a break, eh?” He didn’t appear to believe it. Nevertheless, he relaxed his scrutinizing eye after a short up-and-down appraisal of the boy, and swept an arm out toward the front of the ship. “Well, come. Talk with me a while.” And he set off again, back the way he’d come, not looking back or checking that Jasen was following. But then, he was captain of this vessel—it was unquestionable that a lowly ward would obey him.

  Jasen followed.

  “Tell me, young Jasen,” said Rakon easily. “Where is it you come from? Not from the same lands as these wretches.” He emphasized it by kicking the chain strung between Chaka and Medleigh as he passed, rather than stepping over it. It jolted, jerking them both sideways with small yelps.

  The troll rose, fist tightening around his cane.

  Rakon waved him off with a deep blue hand. The troll relaxed again. But his gaze was hungry, two mighty, pointed teeth sticking out of his bottom jaw in an underbite—waiting for any sign of insubordination from the Lady Vizolans.

  Jasen gave Chaka and Medleigh an apologetic look as he passed. Neither looked especially appeased by it. Again, though, he couldn’t say he was sorry, not without drawing ire from the Prenasians who were showing him, Alixa, Longwell and Huanatha some semblance of courtesy, masked threats aside. So he stepped past them too, making the best show he could of stepping over their chain instead of kicking it too.

  “I came from Terreas,” said Jasen. “A village—on Luukessia. It’s no longer there.”

  Rakon nodded. “And Lord Longwell acquired your services … how?”

  Jasen hesitated. “After I left Luukessia,” he said slowly. “That’s when I came to … work for Lo-Lord Longwell,” he added, catching the name just in time.

  Rakon inclined his head in another nod. “And how did you end up on that island? With these dogs?” With a wave he indicated the Lady Vizolans.

  Jasen hesitated again, grateful that Rakon’s back was still turned so he couldn’t see the hesitation on Jasen’s face.

  “We were traveling with them between ports,” he finally answered. “From Aiger Cliffs.” Rakon nodded at that, too, and Jasen hoped this information would be enough for him. “We were wrecked two days before you came. A storm came in. It dashed the Lady Vizola on the rocks.”

  Rakon looked back over his shoulder, an eyebrow cocked. “Another royal was traveling with you?”

  “Uhh—no. The Lady Vizola—that was the ship we were on, the name of it.”

  Rakon snorted. “Coricuanthians and their fancy names.” Shaking his head, he continued up the steps toward the smaller deck at the fore of the war galley. Wood and metal beams crisscrossed here, forming a sort of fence around the perimeter. An angular decoration, resembling the troll-like faces on the side of the galley, rose ahead of them, pointing out to sea.

  Jasen followed.

  Rakon leaned against the rail, his arm thrown casually against it. Half-tu
rned to point out to sea, he watched its smooth, inky surface. No waves still. The bar of frail sunlight, reaching up from below the horizon, was gradually widening though, and color was seeping back into the world.

  “What happened to your village?” Rakon asked.

  “A mountain—a volcano,” Jasen said. “It erupted.”

  “And you got out alive.”

  No, Jasen thought. I was buried under the slag, just like everyone else.

  He kept this thought to himself.

  A thwack came from down on the deck. Rakon peered toward it. One of the Lady Vizolans—Jasen could not tell who, in this light—cowered forward. The troll loomed over him, swinging the cane up for a second—thwack! The whole rod bent, more elastic than solid wood, but it didn’t snap, then came up again for a third strike.

  Thwack!

  Jasen flinched. He thought he heard a whimper escape the man. If a noise had got out of him, though, he stifled it just as fast.

  One of the other rowboat captains, a short-haired man with bronze bars piercing his eyebrows, called Hamza, said something to the Lady Vizolans, a reprimand of some sort. What the caned man had done, Jasen couldn’t imagine—muttered something to the men on either side of him, perhaps. There was little else he could do, stripped down to his underwear, wielding only a wire brush.

  The troll backed off at Hamza’s order.

  The excitement over, Rakon turned his attentions back to Jasen. Or at least somewhat back to him. He didn’t glance at the boy, just peered over the deck with the faintest sort of interest. Jasen got the feeling he was talking out of boredom.

  “I heard tell of the fall of Luukessia,” he said, “though I was given to understand it happened some time ago. A decade or so later, Arkaria began to topple. All rumor and secondhand knowledge, though; I’ve not gone so far west yet to see myself. Talk of it reaches my ears though, percolating through the Prenasian navy from those who have. A plague of grey-skinned beasts with dark souls poured over the lands, they say.” He leaned toward Jasen. “Not unlike the beast your Lord Longwell has permitted you to keep—and which we have been kind enough to allow you to bring aboard.” Fixing Jasen with a long, assessing look, he leaned back but did not break eye contact. “Of course, the beast of yours cannot be one of them. It is as tame as a trained falcon.” His eyes flashed with a touch of amusement at that, but Jasen suspected he was probing, wondering if perhaps Scourgey was one of the creatures in the stories.

  He schooled his expression into polite interest. If he could be half as good at keeping his emotions from leaking through as Burund, well, he might pass through this conversation without spilling anything more than the words he’d spoken.

  Rakon turned his gaze back onto the war galley’s top deck. No sign of any funny business from the Lady Vizolans; just scrubbing now, no one out of line. The man who’d been struck with the cane was back in his place. Jasen couldn’t pick him out, not from here, in this light. Later, he would—by the welts on his back where he’d been struck.

  “Yours might be tame,” Rakon went on, “but there’s no beast that isn’t dangerous. Not when it’s threatened. Back any creature into a corner, however intelligent …” his gaze flicked to Jasen “… and they’ll fight like animals, relying on basic instincts. This is just known.

  “Of course … all beasts can be tamed, too—man among them.” He nodded toward the Lady Vizolans, in their shadowy line, bowed and scrubbing. “Man is different in this respect. He can rise above his animal instincts … with the appropriate instruction, from the right source.”

  Jasen kept his voice carefully neutral. “Is that so?”

  “Of course,” said Rakon. “Sooner or later, they come to learn their place—and the fight has been disciplined out of them. It is the same with all men. They simply need discipline.”

  Jasen was quiet. Yes, Rakon was bored, he thought. Certainly he was not saying any of this to Jasen because he expected the boy to agree. He was just talking for the sake of talking.

  “Prenasia is that order,” Rakon said casually. “We will tame the world.”

  “Oh?” Jasen said politely.

  “Not tomorrow,” Rakon answered. “Our focus is in the east, for now. But the day will come when Amatgarosa is ended, their defiance comes to its natural halt in the face of our innate superiority, and Prenasia will dominate. And so—for now—we are allies with you westerners, and your disorder.” He again cast Jasen a sideways look, more of a smirk than a genuine smile. Easing back once more, he leaned back on the rail: “But not these men.” He looked darkly at the Lady Vizola’s crew.

  “No?”

  “Coricuanthi is too divided, you see,” said Rakon. “Too many city-states, too many tribal grudges. Muratam alone is at war with three other city-states surrounding it, and bears ill will toward five others.” Shaking his head, he said, “Coricuanthi lacks union. Purpose. When the appropriate moment comes, it is Prenasia’s destiny to bring order to that chaos.”

  Jasen almost expected him to say, But not yet. Our enemies to the east …

  He did not. It was there, though, unspoken, lingering in the air like mist. Jasen had the measure of him, and had found it easily enough—a man who boasted, too sure of his land and its people and their superiority, and contemptuous of Prenasia’s many enemies.

  Rakon cast a look at the horizon. The bar of orange sunlight was widening, softening the darkness of the evaporating night.

  “Your lord will be looking for you,” said Rakon. “I daresay your break is not this long. And some of us have work to do.”

  “Yes,” said Jasen, stepping away. “Thank you, Captain.”

  Rakon did not reply so Jasen clambered down to the main deck, past the men of the Lady Vizola, again taking great care to step over their chains. The Prenasians watched him, and the troll too, idly swinging the cane back and forth so it whistled as it streaked through the air, as if looking for any excuse to land it upon Jasen’s back.

  Huanatha had called these people warmongers. It was plain in the way Rakon spoke—and of course in the way they’d already brutalized the Lady Vizola’s crew. Jasen and Alixa had been lucky to escape the worst of captivity.

  He needed to free them all, though. Not that there had ever been any question of that, other than the how of it, which he still didn’t have the first answer to. But now he saw these Prenasians more clearly, and understood their belief in their innate superiority, it was more imperative than ever. He had to find a way to free the men of the Lady Vizola from their captors—and soon.

  11

  Jasen hammered on the door that he hoped was Longwell’s.

  A confused mumble answered him. “Who’s there?”

  “Jasen,” he hissed, half a whisper, loud enough to penetrate the thick wood and the fog of sleep apparently clouding Longwell’s mind.

  “Jasen?” A yawn. “What are you …?”

  Footsteps approached the door. Then it was opened—and there he stood, the dragoon, clad in cloth underclothes that must have been scavenged from the Lady Vizola’s stores. Striped white and blue, they looked almost comical on him in place of his usual suit of armor.

  He peered at Jasen through bleary eyes, rubbing his face with his palm.

  “What are you doing here?” Longwell asked. And then, suppressing another yawn: “What time is it?”

  “Before dawn,” said Jasen. “May I come in? I’d like to speak to you about something.”

  Nodding, Longwell ushered Jasen inside. Then he peeked his head out into the corridor, looking both directions. Activity had long since begun on the war galley—or, rather, it hadn’t stopped: a vessel this size required working right through the night, but here Jasen and Longwell had privacy.

  Longwell closed the door.

  His quarters were grander than Jasen’s and Alixa’s. Perhaps triple the size, his room housed a larger cot with thicker blankets, currently lying in disarray at the foot of the bed, a writing desk, a chest which stood open, some meager possession
s in it, all of them apparently collected from the Lady Vizola’s salvage, and finally, scavenged from ancestors knew where, a frame on which Longwell’s armor hung. With its wooden arms, it looked like a military scarecrow, Longwell’s helmet replacing a straw cap.

  “I’ve just been on deck,” Jasen began, but no sooner had he said it than there came a knock on the door.

  Jasen and Longwell both froze.

  Who was knocking? At this hour?

  “Answer it,” said Longwell.

  Jasen spluttered, “Me?”

  “You’re my ward,” Longwell whispered. “If it’s Rakon or one of his captains, they’ll think it odd if I answer my own door while you’re present. Quickly!”

  Jasen hurried to the door. He opened it, dreading the sight of Rakon greeting him once again—

  But it was not Rakon. Nor was it a blue-skinned Prenasian at all—though, for a fearful half-moment as his brain caught up with reality, Jasen could’ve sworn it was. Huanatha stood there, faint rings under her eyes but more alert than Longwell had been. She was already clad in her blue armor—except the breastplate, of course; the Prenasians had been kind enough to donate a spare, muted and grey and very battered. Jasen couldn’t help but wish he’d been there to see the moment she was given it; her sneer would’ve been almightily dark.

  “I heard you hammering,” she said to Jasen. “I did not wish to miss any discussions.”

  “Oh. Uhm. Come in.” Jasen stepped aside.

  Huanatha slipped in by him.

  She nodded at Longwell, appraising. “Don’t you look fetching.”

  Longwell huffed and lifted his helmet from the armor rack. “It’s too early for your jibes.”

  “Who said anything about a jibe?” Huanatha countered.

  A peculiar look passed between them. Jasen felt, for a moment, like an intruder, then Longwell dropped heavily onto the edge of his cot, the helmet stuck on his head and the face guard open, looking even more ridiculous than he had in just his striped underclothes. “Speak your mind, Jasen.”

  Jasen hesitated. “Is it safe …?” If Huanatha had been able to hear his knocking, what did that mean for their conversation?