by Cory Huff
“Thank you.” Said Nia. She could be gracious when necessary. She wasn’t the wild woman that the town boys thought she was. “I really appreciate it. I’ll just see myself out. Do I make a donation?” Nia sat up again and gritted her teeth as her head swam. She clutched her bound up arm to her chest.
“Easy. You probably shouldn’t try to get up just yet.”
“No, I’m ok. I’ll just get out of your way here.”
Leandra stepped back, an amused look on her face. “I’ll tell you what, if you can stand up and walk out of here, I won’t say a word.”
Nia looked around. Her bed was one of several dozen in a large, canvas tent. There were metal boxes at the foot of each bed. Each bed was covered with meticulously folded sheets and blankets. Hers was the only bed with a person in it. “What is this place? It looks…orderly. And empty.”
Leandra smiled. “The Knights of the Great Creator provide the priests with tents for tending those who are injured in battle.”
“I wasn’t injured in…” she trailed off as she saw Leandra’s smile. “Being ambushed by wolves counts as some kind of military honor?”
A deep voice broke in, “Any person your size that can survive a horrific injury like that, fight off a pack of wolves, and live to tell the tale is a soldier wounded in battle as far as I’m concerned.” A tall, very fit and very good looking man strode into the tent. He had a jawline chiseled like stone, but softened with an easy smile. “I heard you tried to walk out of here on your own earlier and Leandra found you on the floor. I’m Garrick, Lord Commander of the Knights of the Great Creator. I think your stubbornness could teach our soldiers a thing or two. I also think that if you can walk out of here on your own we should let you, and we should assemble all of the Knights so that they can see what real grit looks like.”
Nia didn’t know how to respond. She took a deep breath and slid off the bed, onto her feet. Her head swam as she tried to take a step. She steadied herself with her good hand on the bed.
Leandra looked at the Lord Commander and rolled her eyes. He grinned back at her.
Nia looked at the exit to the tent. It was perhaps ten steps away. She knew she couldn’t make it, but she wasn’t about to admit that to anyone. She took a deep breath and another step.
“Nia wait.” The Lord Commander’s voice stopped her again. Nia looked at Leandra with hostility.
“Don’t look at me. I said I wouldn’t say a word, and I haven’t. And I won’t.”
Garrick grinned. “Nia, if you will get back in that bed and rest long enough to heal, I will make you a deal.”
Nia looked at him, still hostile. “What deal?” Her voice was flat.
“Do you want to learn how to fight? You seem like the kind of person who wants to fight.”
Nia stared at him. Slightly less hostile. She didn’t say no.
“You get healthy, and I will personally teach you how to fight. I want you as a Knight.”
“That’s never going to happen.” Nia’s leg muscles were trembling and she could feel herself perspiring.
“Why not? Do you have something against the knights?”
“I don’t like people. I’d have to be around a lot of them if I were a knight.”
“Nia, I think you do like people. I think you love people deeply, but I think you’ve been wounded by them. I know about your family, what happened to them, and why you live in the woods with only Aidan as your friend.”
Nia’s dizziness overcame her and she fell back down into sitting position on the bed. She hissed as the jolt caused pain to shoot up her arm. She felt betrayed. “Aidan told you about my family?” She was not crying. Definitely no tears in her eyes.
“He did, but only because he is concerned about you. You were delirious when you came in and you were crying about your mother. You kept saying, ‘please don’t die’ and ‘Gaoth will save you mommy’. You pushed away every hand that tried to touch you. You called out for Aidan, so we asked him to join us and he told us about the Happening that killed your family. We spoke to you about the death of your mother and you calmed down and cried yourself unconscious.”
As he spoke, Nia felt a lump thickening in her throat. She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to relive it. She wanted to push it all away. She was holding her breath, clamping down on the tears and the emotion. She couldn’t remember this conversation. She’d been so delirious that she had lost control of herself and talked about things that she didn’t want anyone to know. Damn Aidan. She would punch him in the face next time she saw him. After her arm healed. She was starting to get dizzy from holding her breath again. She let it out and felt her emotion about to overwhelm her, so she screamed instead. “STOOOP! JUST STOP! I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS!”
Nia sucked in a huge breath of air. Tears in her eyes and agony radiating out from her arm. “I WILL KILL AIDAN FOR TELLING YOU! I WANT TO BE A KNIGHT. I WANT TO FIGHT AIDAN EVERY DAY AND BEAT HIS FACE IN.”
Leandra stood there stunned.
“Deal.” Said Garrick.
Liam slowly opened his eyes. The early morning sunlight lanced through his eyes painfully, even filtered by the trees. He smelled burning. He felt hung over, like he’d had too much ale. But he hadn’t drunk.
What happened struck him and he bolted upright - and immediately retched, heaving his stomach onto the forest floor. And again. His entire abdomen cramped, seemingly trying to push his organs out of him through his stomach. He dry heaved and the world spun. He couldn’t tell which was was up. He was vaguely aware of soiling himself. He wished that he could die so this would stop. He prayed to the Creator to make it stop. It continued. At some point, he lost consciousness, lying in his own filth on the forest floor.
Aidan walked into the Temple grounds in a pensive mood. He had helped his father to bed two nights ago and cleaned up the blood and mess late into the night. The feeling of profound peace was still with him. It had stayed with him as he had cleaned late into the night. He hadn’t wanted to go to bed because it was something that he had never felt before. The kind of … connection, was that the right word? The kind of connection was amazing.
When he awoke the next morning, he had a profound talk with his father. Kerry - he thought of him as Kerry now, not just father, since their relationship dynamic had so profoundly altered - had been sober and clear eyed. He hadn’t even asked for a drink. He had told Aidan that he didn’t feel the desire to drink. He felt better than he had felt in years, more than a decade. He said he felt like he had a new lease on life and that he would be joining Aidan at church service later that day. He had been a little bit in awe of Aidan, and expressed to him how profoundly sorry he was that he had lost so many years to drinking and illness. He would be a better father to Aidan and to Auley. They had both cried as Kerry promised to do a better job honoring Geldi, Aidan’s mother and Kerry ’s wife. They would work together to make sure that Auley had a different childhood than Aidan. They spent the entire day talking, and it had been amazing. Even so, it seemed like there was something that his father was holding back, and Aidan needed some distance to reflect.
Aidan had promised to meet his father at services. He needed to have some time to process what had happened last night. Was it a Happening? He didn’t think so. The divine presence had been so strong, and nobody ever described feeling anything but terror during the Happenings. And nobody had ever been healed during a Happening. He wanted to talk to Nia about it. She frequently spoke about the Happenings. She had seen things that others hadn’t seen. He wondered how she had been doing since yesterday.
He walked into the infirmary, and saw Nia. She was the only person there, lying on a cot. She had a cast around her arm, and was covered in scratches and bruises. He gasped. She had been so dirty yesterday that he hadn’t seen her injuries aside from her arm.
She looked up and they locked eyes. Aidan was confused by the angry look. He was even more confused when she suddenly leaned over, grabbed a shoe and hurled it at him. He ca
ught the shoe and ran forward as she pitched headlong off the side of the bed, yelling, “get out of here! Agh!”
He caught her by the good shoulder before she hit the ground and he gently lifted her back onto the bed, but she somehow kicked him in the ribs. “Ow, what was that for?”
“Get out! Get out now! I don’t want to see your face again until I’m well enough to beat it in! You had no right! GET OUT!” and she kicked him again, which he blocked with his arms. He danced out of the way of another kick.
“Whoa, ok, wow! I’m going! I have no idea what I did! Why…”
“GET OUT!” She sobbed.
Aidan beat a hasty retreat.
Hours passed. Liam thought he woke. It might have been a dream. The cramps were somehow constant. On instinct, he had pulled himself through the dirt, blood, vomit, and viscera of the dead to find a small trickle of a stream. Or he had dreamed it. But it had been cool, relieving his fever somewhat, when he dropped his face in the stream. There were gaps in his memory. He drank. Then he was on his back. He was face-down again, curled up in a ball, his teeth threatening to crack as cramps racked his body. He drank. Time was meaningless. It might have been hours. Or days. Maybe longer. He didn’t think it was weeks. Thinking hurt though.
The creatures were gone. He thought. They hadn’t killed him.
He needed to get away. He drank a little more from the stream. Time passed.
Nia could get out of bed now. She was standing in the courtyard outside the under construction temple, watching the Squires practice hand to hand fighting. She could feel the tiredness in her body, but she ached to go over to the women and ask them to start training her. She saw the men practicing and wanted to beat Aidan’s face in. How dare he. They were not friends any more.
Just this morning, Leandra had remarked that she was healing marvelously well. Much faster than initially expected. It was practically a miracle of the Creator she said. Nia agreed that it was a miracle, but not necessarily one of the Creator. Her dreams had been more vivid. The world was speaking to her. The deep voiced rocks. The high pitched, fast talking songbirds. The sizzling cook fires. The gentle breezes and the howling winds. She wasn’t sure what they were saying to her, but she knew there was something there. She had broached the topic with Leandra, asking if the Creator spoke through the elements of the world. Leandra had responded that all of the earth testified of the Creator and that you could find Him in all things. Nia was sure that’s not what was happening, even if she couldn’t explain it. She didn’t bother trying to explain what was happening to her when Leandra inquired as to why Nia asked.
The secrets that the natural world whispered to her were, in part, words of healing. She listened and she knew how to flex her broken arm in a way that hurt a little less, that moved the blood and promoted healing. She did other things that she learned from the breezes, breathing in stillness, willing her life force to flow through her brokenness and heal her body. She did it so naturally she didn’t even realize she was doing it until it was already happening. She felt like an observer, watching herself do things that would have seemed miraculous if it didn’t seem so easy and natural.
Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself flowing through forms that the women were using to throw each other around. She watched their footwork and tried to imitate their dance. She noticed that when one of them was able to get lower than the other and step in the right way, it was easy to throw even a larger opponent on their back. Nia imagined doing that to Aidan and she smiled.
Commander Garrick watched Nia. She had been standing off to the side of Squires for the last two days, making no pretensions to hide that she was observing and learning. As he watched, she did a decent job imitating what the women were doing. Leandra claimed she wasn’t healed enough to practice yet, and that she had some odd ideas about the Creator. From where Garrick stood, he saw a young woman with a burning desire to prove herself. Someone who ignored pain to get what she wanted. The Knights needed more like her. She was going to fit really well. He decided he would invite her to join the training in the morning.
Nia continued stepping through the forms, her injured muscles straining, until she eventually exhausted herself, falling down and wiping silent, pain-filled tears from her eyes. She would learn. She looked up and saw everyone breaking up practice for the afternoon. She saw the squires heading in various different directions and it was a moment before she realized that Aidan was walking toward her, cautiously waving, a half-smile on his face.
Nia pretended she hadn’t seen Aidan and willed herself to stand and walked to the infirmary tent before he could get close.
“Nia!” yelled Aidan.
She tried to hurry faster and almost stumbled. She gritted her teeth and kept walking. When she got to the tent, she grabbed the canvas around the opening, and looked back. Aidan was gone. He hadn’t chased after her. She was a little surprised. She was not disappointed. She definitely did not feel disappointment. She squelched whatever she was feeling and stepped inside, making it a few more steps before collapsing onto her cot.
At some point, someone brought her food. A root vegetable soup with little chunks of beef, along with a large hunk of bread and butter. She stirred when she smelled it sitting next to her cot, opened her eyes, and sat up to eat. She was ravenous. Dipping the bread in the soup and then slathering it with butter was the best thing that she had eaten in weeks. It was gone in moments and she could have eaten more. But since there was no more, and she was still tired, she laid down and fell asleep immediately.
…..
Nia stirred as the early bells rang. Based on the previous days’ bells, and a helpful answer from Leandra, that meant it was time for morning prayer service. Again because of Leandra, Nia knew that many of the hopeful knights, monks, and nuns would have been up for an hour or more already, preparing the food and getting some extra study time in. There was a bowl of steaming porridge next to her cot. She wolfed that down and quickly dressed in the white novitiate tabard they gave out to the Squires. She paused as she realized that she was essentially agreeing to join the Church of the Great Creator and take orders. Some questions occurred to her. How long would she be expected to serve? What were her duties going to be after she completed her training? Why did the church need a knighthood? There were no wars. There were no enemies close by. Atania barely received any traders at all. The occasional barbarian tribe wandered into the city off of the Thir to trade their skins and trinkets in return for metalwork and weapons. Nobody needed an army as far as she knew. She pondered these thoughts as she made her halting way to the morning prayer meeting. She didn’t believe in the Creator, but she wanted to understand these people - what made them do things like form a knighthood?
As she made her way into the pews of the rough hewn wooden building that served as the Church’s temporary worship hall while the stone temple was under construction, she noticed that there was a line of five white-clad young priests making their way to the front row from a side entrance. They were followed by a trio of older priests dressed in black collars carrying heavy tomes of scripture. This was different from the few days that she had attended services. Normally, the morning meeting was presided over by a single one of the priests, and the initiates’ white clothing looked new and formal.
The opening hymn began. Something about gratitude for this day of new beginning. Nia wasn’t familiar with it. This was also a variation from the regular morning meeting. Something was definitely going on. The hymn ended. Because she was sitting near the back like usual, she could see that the pews were more full than they normally were as everyone sat. There were several hundred people in the small building, crowding the pews.
One of the three senior priests stood, a thin, blonde man named Abban. “Brothers and sisters, welcome. Today we celebrate the baptism and ordination of five new priests. Adare. Colm. Sienna. Tyyne. Feann. We rejoice with you as you take these vows and join our order. Truly the Creator is smiling upon all of us today
and also rejoices to see His priesthood grow. Your first assignments may be a teaching or administrative role here at the Temple, or out in Atania, or perhaps even a missionary role out in the wider world. Whatever the Creator calls you to do, it will be up to you to learn and grow where He plants you. Your training has been just the beginning. Be humble. Be patient. Be strong.”
Nia was a little surprised Abban didn’t seem to be looking directly at her when he spoke the next words. “For those of you who are not familiar with what happens today, let me explain. Today, there will be no regular homily. Instead, our new priests-to-be will file out into the courtyard fountain. We will exit the rear doors to join them in the courtyard. In the fountain, each of our priests will be baptized by immersion. Their immersion in the water represents the death of the old self. The death of one who seeks only their own interests. Their emergence from the water is the birth of a new person. This new person seeks not personal gain, but to serve the Creator, serve others and to help their community. They become a true disciple of the Creator.”
Nia felt a little bit dizzy. Her mind flashed back to that horrific night. She could see her blood everywhere and hear the angry, frustrated wolves. She felt the pain pulse through her. She felt the stone under her hands as she tried to decipher the scratches.
A line of poetry came to her mind unbidden. A poem her mother sometimes quoted.
Knit together in need and pain
Bond me and to you send
My heart, my soul, and will
I’ll heal up hearts and sadness end
Nia had called upon Gaoth. She had received help of some kind. There had been…figures. She remembered a feverish dream-like state where a moonlit figure had stepped in front of her. Electricity in the air, seemingly emanating from the mysterious figure. The wolves had run from that electricity. The figure had turned toward her, reaching, and the world had gone dark.
