Hero Grown

by Andy Livingstone

  The man stepped forward and his gaze fixed on Brann. ‘I am pleased to meet with you, for my son deems you worthy of being brought where none is brought. I am Karluan-ul-Turat.’

  ‘I am Brann.’

  ‘Tell me of yourself.’

  It was a strange question. What was there to tell? He shrugged. ‘I still live.’

  ‘That is indeed true, but not a surprise to learn, as my eyes had managed to determine this fact some time ago. What is interesting, however, is that you felt it worthy of mention.’

  His hand rested on Brann’s head with gentle strength and the boy felt the thumb brush back his fringe. The eyes looked directly into his for a long moment, and the man turned to Grakk. ‘Feral. I am assuming not so by nature.’

  His son shook his head. ‘Far from it.’

  ‘And that is the reason for your visit?’

  Grakk nodded.

  ‘To bring him to the Friend of the Soul?’

  Another nod.

  The man looked long at Brann. There was nothing to say, so he looked back and waited. The man turned back to Grakk. ‘Are you certain? Pain lies down that road. It may be kinder to leave things as they are. Pain such as this can be the death of the sufferer.’

  Grakk raised his head and looked his father in the eye. ‘Were I not certain, I would never have dragged these people on a journey such as this, nor would I have revealed secrets such as these.’

  ‘And are such secrets safe?’

  Grakk looked around his little party, but his words were for his father. ‘These are good people, with good hearts. Once they witness the truth of this place, they will guard that truth with their lives. I am certain of this.’

  ‘And is it worth it? The journey for all, the pain for the boy, the responsibility for your companions, the risk to our home and all it contains? All worth attempting to find a cure for one?’

  Brann did wonder at this himself. The man’s words did make sense. He had thought all that they did was to flee the city from those who chased them.

  Grakk started to speak but was interrupted by Cannick clearing his throat. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, sir,’ he inclined his head in respect but kept talking at the same time, ‘much could rest on this. One who can see such things has foretold that much of great import may be finely balanced in the scales of the gods, and the soul that may be saved is the weight that could tilt the balance away from that which many fear.’

  Grakk looked sharply at the veteran warrior, who shrugged in return. ‘You were not the only one Our Lady asked to speak to before we left.’

  Grakk blinked. ‘I suppose she asked you to keep him safe as well?’

  Cannick grinned, almost sheepishly. ‘Not only he. Also the one who had the knowledge to bring us to where we had to go.’

  ‘And yet, ironically, it was the one we were to protect who protected us.’ Grakk smiled. ‘How fitting. And reassuring.’

  Hakon pushed Marlo out of the way to step forward. ‘Just as important to me is that I liked him the way he was. It is not right, what was done to him. And not fair.’ Grakk’s father turned his gaze upon Hakon, and the big boy faltered. ‘Well, that’s what I think anyway. I miss him.’

  The girl nodded and the cheerful boy said, ‘I only knew him a short while, but I liked what I knew.’

  The boy with the dark stare spoke in a low voice. ‘The hurt should be undone.’

  Brann’s brows knitted. None of this made sense. He liked these people, but he hated when they spoke in riddles. Life had been much simpler when all he had to do was eat, sleep and fight.

  ‘Admirable,’ Karluan-ul-Turat said, his voice as soft as ever. ‘But there are many who are missed, and many more who suffer under misfortune and injustice, yet we cannot risk what is held dear here for the sake of each of them. For the sake of all of them, however, we find the risk acceptable, and what I heard from your older friend here leads me to believe that the fate of countless such people may be influenced one way or another.’ He faced Brann. ‘And what say you?’

  He looked at the man. ‘I know only the life underground with others, and the journey here with them. The life above ground and all that fills it is familiar, so it seems not strange to me, but when I think of it, the only people and places I know are those I have come across since this man Grakk led me out of the darkness.’

  ‘That is interesting, but it is not of what we speak. It is not what I asked.’

  Brann stared into his eyes. ‘I am saying that I don’t know of what they speak, so I cannot help you as they have done. But,’ he looked at the group, ‘they say they are my friends and if they feel as they do about this person they knew, I too want him to be helped.’

  The man smiled. ‘Then that settles the matter.’ He looked at Grakk. ‘You shall have your wish.’ He turned to the group. ‘Now, as you are here we cannot turn you away: we can only either welcome you or kill you to preserve our secret.’ Brann felt Grakk’s hand stay his wrist again, and let his hand relax away from his sword. ‘Fortunately, we have enough of a meal prepared to adequately feed you, so welcome it is.’ He turned to walk down a path and beckoned over his shoulder. ‘Come. Please come.’

  They fell in behind him, and Brann found his head turned by the scene to marvel further as they walked. The path was a ramp that took them down to the valley floor and they walked between rows of vines where men and women alike clipped fruit and smiled at them as they passed.

  Brann looked behind and saw that the armed men had melted away as silently as they had appeared. He moved alongside Grakk. ‘They do not fear us? We walk among them with sword and axe and bow, they know us not, and yet they trust that we will not visit harm upon them.’

  Grakk smiled. ‘They know that, should those who govern this place not trust us, then we would not have set more than a pace within it and still be alive. As they trust those who trust us, then they also trust us.’

  ‘And your father is the leader of these people?’

  ‘No, young Brann, a council of respected elders governs this place, and while my father sits on that council, yet he is not even one of those considered senior. However, given the family connection, he requested that it be he who welcomed us.’

  Brann nodded. He could understand that. If only all conversations were like this.

  They were led to a simple hall just a hundred paces up the side of the slope where a trestle bowed under the weight of the food that awaited them. They fell upon it with the vigour of those who had existed on only the food they could carry for too long, and were soon abed in the rooms above, fatigue they had denied to themselves for long weeks now impossible to ignore.

  Brann lifted the padded mattress from his bed and carried it outside building where he could lie and stare at the stars as he had every night that they had travelled. He liked the stars. Although he could never remember a life where he had seen them before the City Below, still from the first time he had seen them after emerging he knew them with a familiarity he could not understand. Just like he knew a horse, though nobody rode underground, and was not astounded by the sight of the sun, and walked streets and passed buildings without wondering what they were. He knew, though he knew not how. It was just the people he had to learn about with each one he met.

  He thought about the people he called his friends, who called him friend. The tattooed tribesman who had led them to his home, the old warrior who spoke with straightforward sense, the protective boy with the anger in his eyes, the big boy who found life so simple, the girl with confidence in every movement and the boy with the smile that came as often as he blinked.

  He liked them.

  And he liked the stars. Whatever happened, good or bad, they were always there. The same stars he had seen in the desert night, he now looked upon in this place of peace, of safety, of calm, and of much more that had been alluded to at times by Grakk and now his father.

  Now, if he could just find a fighting pit, it would be perfect.

  The screaming had la
sted for days until his throat could make no more sound.

  Even then, his back had arched and his jaw had felt displaced as his body had refused to admit the futility of trying to make the noise. He had not screamed continuously, nor even the majority of the time, interspersed as it was with weeping dredged from the depths of his being and cold blank staring, lost in his own private hell. But, screaming or not, the days had merged into a daze of horror, a horror that was all the more ravaging because it came from within.

  Very little of it, he could remember. His mind had lurched from one instant to the next. What fogged consciousness he had been granted was able to deal only with the torment it faced in the moment. He recalled the scent of a vapour, heady fumes that seemed to fill every part of his body, though he knew not the source of the incense; he recalled the sound of the screaming that sometimes seemed his own, sometimes seemed from afar, though he knew not what ripped it from him; he recalled the hands that had held him and the mitts that had been fastened onto him after he had tried to claw his own eyes, eyes that had been guilty of bringing horrors into his mind, though he knew not the men behind the holding; and most of all, he recalled a face and a voice, a stranger who was familiar, who was soothing as he brought pain, though he knew not the name of the man. He felt the pain in every part of his body and mind, though he knew not the reason for the torture.

  He lay in the breaths between sleep and awake, gradually aware of voices around him. Voices he did not know. Unaccustomed softness beneath him. Unusual coolness around him.

  Unfamiliar peace within.

  He tried to open his eyes, but the effort was still too great. He listened to the voices, a pair of them, one deep and soft, the other older and more grating than the rocks of the land.

  ‘I can do no more.’

  ‘He is lost?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘How can he return? They ripped out the man and left a beast in his place.’

  ‘They did neither.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘There is the beast in all of us. It emerges when it must, the ease and frequency of doing so governed only by the nature of the individual. It emerges to guard what we hold dear: our loved ones, our beliefs, our own survival. Else a baker could not defend his home, a gentle mother her child, yet both can fight with a ferocity they could never otherwise imagine. In this one, whatever he faced required the beast so constantly, so powerfully that the beast assumed the mantle of the body, and the man was buried so deep that even his memories were buried with him. All that the beast knows is that it must fulfil its purpose, and no limits of society or personal restraints will hinder its actions. He became the beast to survive, but such was the work of the beast to keep him alive, and such was the life he endured, that his awareness began in that world and that existence was all he knew. So man did not leave and beast did not invade him; both were always there and both will ever be.’

  ‘He will return?’

  ‘He did return. That was the beginning and the cause of the anguish, of the pain you witnessed.’

  ‘He will be as he was before, though?’

  ‘That we must wait to discover. Never quite the same.’

  ‘The best we can hope?’

  ‘At best? He now has both sets of memories, and the man will have found acceptance of the memories of the beast. Whether it is peaceful acceptance remains to be seen.’

  ‘Acceptance? So the man before will be the man who speaks to us now?’

  ‘We can hope. If he is strong. But there may be situations that will awake the other.’

  ‘In what fashion? He will lose himself once more?’

  ‘That cannot be said until the moment arrives.’

  A third voice. ‘The pain you put him through. Was it necessary?’ He knew this voice.

  ‘It was not I who brought the pain. The pain was the man returning to awareness and discovering the memories of his life as the beast.’

  ‘Such pain can kill.’ The voice was concerned. ‘And leave damage in those who survive.’ And ever more familiar.

  ‘It can. Which is why the herbs use sleep to limit the exposure. Think of it like entering an icy pool with a weak heart. To jump in when vulnerable could overwhelm and kill. I eased him in and out, a little more each time, ever more accustomed.’

  ‘I worry for him. Will he be the boy we knew? He was a good boy. Will he be anything that he was?’

  He knew it! His eyes blinked open and he sat up, startling the three men in the room, the largest jumping with a shout. ‘Grakk!’ The delight he felt filled his voice and more.

  The tribesman stood beside the narrow bed he had been lying upon. Brann threw his arms around him, pulling him tight. Grakk’s father stood to one side, bemused, and a diminutive and unhealthily wiry old man with the face he remembered from his haze-filled dreams was at the foot of the cot.

  When he let go, the tattooed man was smiling tentatively. ‘You know where you are, young Brann? How you got here?’

  He frowned. ‘I could hardly cross a desert, pass through a hidden door, travel a tunnel dug apparently by dwarves and find a secret city in the heart of a mountain and not notice at least some of it.’

  ‘And before? What of that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, the fighting pits? Yeah, there was that.’ His eyes widened in dismay. ‘Oh by the gods!’

  Grakk’s concern was instant. His hand went reassuringly to Brann’s shoulder and his voice was gentle. ‘You need to rest.’

  Brann shook off his hand. ‘We left the Lady there. And Einarr and Konall – they will still be in the citadel, if they still live. We must go back. We must rescue them.’ He pushed back the sheet, finding himself naked, and rolled from the bed, casting about for clothing. ‘We must leave at once. We can plan on the way.’

  The large man coughed pointedly. ‘Is he the boy you knew, son?’

  Grakk grinned. ‘It appears so.’

  Brann had found his clothes washed and folded neatly on a stool in the corner and was almost clothed. He paused, a darkness in his eyes. ‘And Loku. He must die.’

  Grakk looked at his father. ‘Perhaps with some differences.’

  Brann pulled on his boots and made for the door. He could don his tunic on the way. ‘Grakk, hurry up. There is no time to waste.’ A thought occurred to him and he popped his head back into the room. ‘Apologies, I forget myself. Thank you.’ He nodded to the large man and the old one. ‘Very much.’

  The large one raised his eyebrows at his son.

  ‘Yes,’ said Grakk. ‘He’s back.’

  Emerging into the dazzling sunlight, Brann squinted and tripped over a figure sitting outside the doorway. Gerens was on his feet and catching him before he was even halfway to the ground. He looked past Brann at Grakk with a question in his eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ said Grakk again. ‘He’s back.’

  The boy stepped back to look into Brann’s eyes with his dark stare. ‘I can’t stop the storms from coming, Chief, but when they do come, I can stand at your side in the wind and the rain, and I will.’

  Brann hugged him and, while the boy was stiff as a shield, still he did not resist or push him away. ‘I know you will. I have no idea why you will or why you do, but there is no one I would rather have there.’

  They sat on a terrace, the setting sun splashing great swathes of crimson across the blue canvas of the sky.

  They had not left immediately, not for several days more. It appeared that the strength of Brann’s body had been sapped by the healing of his mind to an extent he could not have imagined. Now rest had restored him enough to travel, and guilt had prompted them all to determine that they could not indulge themselves in the tranquillity of the city within the mountain any longer. Hard as it would be to tear themselves away, they would leave on the morrow.

  Still, they had this evening and they sat as a group, content in each other’s company.

  Brann broke the silence. He hadn’t wanted to do so, but the thought was in his mi
nd and falling from his lips before he knew it.

  ‘Grakk, I asked you when we arrived, and if we are to leave such a place, you must tell us how you could do so when you were born to this.’

  The calm eyes stared from the bald head but they seemed to be looking over time rather than the vista before them.

  ‘Leaving is not a problem when you know you will soon be coming back. Our people frequent the Deadlands. In particular, as adulthood beckons we are expected to roam there, partly to build skills but mainly to perpetuate the myth that our home is in the great sands. Hence our name among the other races: the Tribe of the Desert. When you know that you cannot return for much of a lifetime, though, that is when your heart breaks at the leaving.’

  ‘So you were sent forth?’ Cannick asked. ‘They asked much of you.’

  ‘With deeds to accomplish?’ The excitement in Marlo’s eyes betrayed his imagination.

  Grakk sighed. ‘I was sent away. I was ordered, not asked. And for deeds done, not planned.’ He looked around them, his whole demeanour uncomfortable. ‘We have shared much together. You have a right to know, and I have the trust in you to tell you, but this goes no further than we seven. It is how it must be.’

  His eyes swept around his companions, and were greeted with a nod from each.

  He sighed. ‘It seems more than a lifetime ago, but when I look at this view I feel like it was only yesterday I was growing up in this place.’

  His eyes grew distant. ‘To understand what transpired, you must understand this place. To be born here is to be born into a culture like no other, one dedicated to a single purpose: preserving what is here. And what is here is that building yonder.’ Their eyes followed his pointing finger to a long low building a quarter of the way around the circumference of the area within the mountain. ‘Our House of Treasures.’ Sophaya’s head jerked to attention. ‘Be calm, young lady. Not your kind of treasure, but one more valuable than all the gold in the world. My people are collectors of knowledge. Within that building lies as much of the written learning of this world as a thousand years have permitted us to accumulate, original documents or copies we care not, for it is that which is within them that is of value. Much of what is contained in there is already known, and we merely ensure that it is preserved for future generations; much else is not even known to us, such is the volume of documents held here. But retained they are, for knowledge lost for all time is a tragedy beyond compare to my people. We scour the countries of the world, ever in search of more, and we preserve what we have. Our scribes are true scribes, working from boyhood to dotage in the Halls of the Quill, replacing what is fading, adding what new information is gleaned. Our greatest defence is secrecy. To the world, we are nomads, scraping a life from the desert, our eloquence a quirk of a bygone past and a trait that is as much endearing as it is disarming. This city is a myth, and not one associated with our people in any case. Even those who tell the stories of its existence know not of the true treasure it harbours.’