The Black Road d-2

by Mel Odom

  "What?" Effirn asked.

  "Can you run?"

  The boy's face worked in confusion. "I don't know. I've never tried."

  The violet fire gained another ten feet on him.

  "Try now," Cholik suggested. He held his arms out. "Run to me, Effirn. Quickly, boy. Fast as you can."

  Tentatively, Effirn started running, trying out his new muscles and abilities. He ran, and the violet fire burning up the ash trail chased him, still gaining, but by inches now rather than feet.

  "Come on, Effirn," Cholik cheered. "Show your da how fast you've become now that Dien-Ap-Sten has shown you grace."

  Effirn ran, laughing the whole way. The conversation of the audience picked up intensity. The boy reached the trail's end, sweeping down the final curve to the ground, and was in Cholik's arms just as the violet blaze hit the end of the trail and vanished in a puff of bruised embers.

  Feeling as though he'd just escaped death again, Cholik held the boy to him for a moment, surprised at how big Effirn had gotten. He felt the boy's arms and legs tight against him.

  "Thank you, thank you, thank you," Effirn gasped, hugging Cholik with strong arms and legs.

  Embarrassed and flushed with excitement at the same time, Cholik hugged the boy back. Effirn's health meant nothing but success for him in Bramwell, but Cholik didn't understand how the demon had worked the magic.

  Healing is simple enough, Kabraxis said in Cholik's mind. Causing hurt and pain are separate issues, and much harder if it's going to be lasting. In order to learn how to injure someone, the magic is designed so that first a person learns to heal.

  Cholik had never been taught that.

  There are a number of things you haven't been taught, Kabraxis said. But you have time left to you. I will teach you. Turn, Buyard Cholik, and greet your new parishioners.

  Easing the boy's grip from him, Cholik turned to face the parents. No one thought to challenge him about why the ash trail had burned away.

  Released, wanting to show off his newfound strength, the boy raced across the clearing. His brothers and sisters cheered him on, and his father caught him up and pulled him into a fierce hug before handing him off to his mother. She held her son to her, tears washing unashamedly down her face.

  Cholik watched the mother and son, amazed at the way the scene touched him.

  You're surprised by how good you feel at having had a hand in healing the boy? Kabraxis asked.

  "Yes," Cholik whispered, knowing no one around him could hear him but that the demon could.

  It shouldn't. To know the Darkness, a being must also know the Light. You lived your life cloistered in Westmarch. The only people you met were those who wanted your position.

  Or those whose positions I coveted, Cholik realized.

  And the Zakarum Church never allowed you to be so personal in the healing properties they doled out, the demon said.

  "No."

  The Light is afraid to give many people powers like I have given you, Kabraxis said. People who have powers like this get noticed by regular people. In short order, they become heroes or talked-about people. In only a little more time, the tales that are told about them allow them to take on lofty mantles. The stewards of the Light are jealous of that.

  "But demons aren't?" Cholik asked.

  Kabraxis laughed, and the grating, thunderous noise echoing inside Cholik's head was almost painful. Demons aren't as jealous as the stewards of Light would have you believe. Nor are they as controlling as the stewards of Light. I ask you, who always has the most rules? The most limitations?

  Cholik didn't answer.

  Why do you think the stewards of Light offer so many rules? Kabraxis asked. To keep the balance in their favor, of course. But demons, we believe in letting all who support the Darkness have power. Some have more power than others. But they earn it. Just as you have earned that which I'm giving you the day you faced your own fear of dying and sought out the buried gateway to me.

  "I had no choice," Cholik said.

  Humans always have choices. That's how the stewards of Light seek to confuse you. You have choices, but you can't choose most of them because the stewards of Light have decreed them as wrong. As an enlightened student of the Light, you're supposed to know that those choices are wrong. So where does that really leave you? How many choices do you really have?

  Cholik silently agreed.

  Go to these people, Buyard Cholik. You'll find converts among them now. Once they have discovered that you have the power to make changes that will let them attain their goals and desires, they will flock to you. Next, we must begin the church, and we must find disciples among these people who will help you spread word of me. For now, give the gift of health to those who are sick among these before you. They will talk. By morning, there won't be anyone in this city who hasn't heard of you.

  Glorying in the newfound respect and prestige he'd gained by healing the boy, Cholik went forward. His body sang with the buzzing thrill of the power Kabraxis channeled through him. The power drew him to the weak and infirm in the crowd.

  Laying hands on the people in the crowd as he came to them, Cholik healed fevers and infections, took away warts and arthritis, straightened a leg that had grown crooked after being set and healing, brought senses back to an elderly grandmother who had been addled for years according to the son who cared for her.

  "I would like to settle in Bramwell," Cholik said as the Gulf of Westmarch drank down the sun and twilight turned to night around them.

  The crowd cheered in response to his announcement.

  "But I will need a church built," Cholik continued. "Once a permanent church is built, the miracles wroughtby Dien-Ap-Sten will continue to grow. Come to me that I may introduce you to the prophet I choose to serve."

  For a night, Buyard Cholik was closer to lasting renown than he'd ever been in his life. It was a heady feeling, one that he promised himself he would get to know more intimately.

  Nothing would stop him.

  FOURTEEN

  "Are you a sailor?" the pretty serving wench asked.

  Darrick looked up at her from the bowl of thick potatoes and meat stew and didn't let the brief pang of loss her words brought touch him. "No," he replied, because he hadn't been a sailor for months.

  The serving girl was a raven-haired beauty scarcely more than twenty years old if she was that. Her black skirt was short and high, revealing a lot of her long, beautiful legs. She wore her hair pulled back, tied at the neck.

  "Why do you ask?" Darrick held her eyes for a moment, then she looked away.

  "Only because your rolling gait as you entered the door reminded me of a sailor's," the wench said. "My father was a sailor. Born to the sea and lost to the sea, as is the usual course for many sailors."

  "What is your name?" Darrick asked.

  "Dahni," she said, and smiled.

  "It's been nice meeting you, Dahni."

  For a moment, the wench gazed around the table, trying to find something to do. But she'd already refilled his tankard, and his bowl remained more than half full. "If you need anything," she offered, "let me know."

  "I will." Darrick kept his smile in place. He'd learned in the months since losing his berth aboard Lonesome Star that smiling politely and answering questions but asking none ended conversations more quickly. If people thought he was willing to be friendly, they didn't find his lack of conversation as threatening or challenging. They just thought he was inept or shy and generally left him alone. The rusehad kept him from a number of fights lately, and the lack of fighting had kept him from the jails and fines that often left him destitute and on the street again.

  Tilting his head, he glanced briefly at the four men playing dice at the table next to his. Three of them were fishermen, he knew that from their clothing, but the fourth man was dressed a little better, like someone who was putting on his best and hoping to impress. It came off as someone down on his luck and getting desperate. That appearance, Darrick knew, was an
illusion.

  He ate hungrily, trying not to act as if he hadn't eaten since yesterday. Or perhaps it was the day before. He was no longer certain of time passing. However few meals he'd had, he'd always managed to make enough money to drink. Drinking was the only way to keep distanced from the fears and nightmares that plagued him. Almost every night, he dreamed of the cliffside in Tauruk's Port, dreamed that he almost saved Mat from the skeleton's clutches, from the awful thump against the cliffside that had broken Mat's skull.

  The tavern was a dive, another in a long string of them. They all looked alike to him. When he finished with his work, wherever he was, he ate a meal, drank until he could hardly walk, then hired a room or bedded down in a stable if the money hadn't been enough to provide drink and a proper bed.

  The clientele was mostly fishermen, hard-faced men with callused hands and scars from nets, hooks, fish, the weather, and years of disappointment that ran bone-deep. They talked of tomorrows that sounded much better than the morning would bring, and what they would do if someday they escaped the need to climb aboard a boat every day and pray the Light was generous.

  Merchants sat among the fishermen and other townspeople, discussing shipments and fortunes and the lack of protection in the northern part of the Great Ocean since Westmarch was keeping its navy so close to home these days still. There still had been no sign of the demon whomthe Westmarch sailors had seen at Tauruk's Port, and many of the merchants and sailors north of Westmarch believed that the pirates had made up the story to lure the king into pulling his navy back.

  Dissent grew among the northern ports and cities because they depended on Westmarch to help defend them. With the Westmarch Navy out of the way, men turned to piracy when they couldn't make the sea pay any other way. Although most pirates weren't acting together, their combined raiding had hurt the economies of several independent ports and even cities farther inland. Westmarch diplomacy, once a feared and treasured and expansive thing, had become weak and ineffective. Northern cities no longer curried favor with Westmarch as much.

  Darrick sopped a biscuit through the stew and popped it into his mouth. The stew was thick and oily, seasoned with grease and spices that made it cloying and hot, a meal that finished off a hardworking man's day. Over the last months, he'd lost weight, but his fighting ability had stayed sharp. For the most part, he stayed away from the docks for fear that someone might recognize him. Although the Westmarch Navy and guardsmen hadn't made a strong effort to find him, or other sailors who had intentionally jumped ship, he remained leery of possible apprehension. Some days death seemed preferable to living, but he couldn't make that step. He hadn't died as he'd grown up under his father's fierce hands, and he didn't intend to die willingly now.

  But it was hard to live willingly.

  He glanced across the room, watching Dahni as she talked and flirted with a young man. Part of him longed for the companionship of a woman, but it was only a small part. Women talked, and they dug at the things that bothered a man, most of them wanting only to help, but Darrick didn't want to deal with that.

  The big man sitting at the end of the bar crossed the floor to Darrick. The man was tall and broad, with a nose flattened and misshapen from fights. Scars, some freshly pink andwebbed with tiny scabs, covered his knuckles and the heels of his palms. An old knife scar showed at his throat.

  Uninvited, he sat across from Darrick, his truncheon lying across his knees. "You're working," the man said.

  Darrick kept his right hand in his lap where his cutlass was. He gazed at the man. "I'm here with a friend."

  To his right, the gambler who had hired Darrick for an evening's protection after they had come in on the trade caravan together praised the Light for yet another good turn. He was an older man, thin and white-haired. During an attack by bandits only yesterday, Darrick had learned that the man could handle himself and carried a number of small knives secreted on his person.

  "Your friend's awfully lucky tonight," the big man said.

  "He's due," Darrick said in a level voice.

  The big man eyed Darrick levelly. "It's my job to keep the peace in the tavern."

  Darrick nodded.

  "If I catch your friend cheating, I'm throwing you both out."

  Darrick nodded again, and he hoped the gambler didn't cheat or was good at it. The man had gamed with others on the caravan as they had wound their way back from Aranoch and trading with a port city that supplied the Amazon Islands.

  "And you might have a care when you step out of here tonight," the bouncer warned, nodding at the gambler. "You got a demon's fog that's rolled up outside that won't burn off till morning. This town isn't well lighted, and some folks that gamble with your friend might not take kindly to losing."

  "Thank you," Darrick said.

  "Don't thank me," the bouncer said. "I just don't want either of you dying in here or anywhere near here." He stood and resumed his position at the end of the bar.

  The serving wench returned with a pitcher of wine, a hopeful smile on her face.

  Darrick covered his tankard with a hand.

  "You've had enough?" she asked.

  "For now," he answered. "But I'll take a bottle with me when I leave if you'll have one ready."

  She nodded, hesitated, smiled briefly, then turned to walk away. The bracelet at her wrist flashed and caught Darrick's eye.

  "Wait," Darrick whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse.

  "Yes?" she asked hopefully.

  Darrick pointed at her wrist. "What is that bracelet you wear?"

  "A charm," Dahni replied. "It represents Dien-Ap-Sten, the Prophet of the Way of Dreams."

  The bracelet was constructed of interlinked ovals separated by carved amber and rough iron so that none of the ovals touched another. The sight of it sparked memory in Darrick's mind. "Where did you get it?"

  "From a trader who liked me," Dahni answered. It was a cheap attempt to make him jealous.

  "Who is Dien-Ap-Sten?" That name didn't ring a bell in Darrick's memory.

  "He's a prophet of luck and destiny," Dahni said. "They're building a church down in Bramwell. The man who gave me this told me that anyone who had the courage and the need to walk the Way of Dreams would get whatever his or her heart desires." She smiled at him. "Don't you think that's a bit far-fetched?"

  "Aye," Darrick agreed, but the story troubled him. Bramwell wasn't far from Westmarch, and that was a place he'd promised himself he wouldn't be any time too soon.

  "Have you ever been there?" Dahni asked.

  "Aye, but it was a long time ago."

  "Have you ever thought of returning there?"

  "No."

  The serving wench pouted. "Pity." She shook her wrist, making the bracelet spin and catch the lantern light. "I should like to go there someday and see that church for myself. They say that when it is finished, it will be a work of art, the most beautiful thing that has ever been built."

  "It's probably worth seeing, then," Darrick said.

  Dahni leaned on the table, exposing the tops of her breasts for his inspection. "A lot of things are worth seeing. But I know I won't get to see them as long as I stay in this town. Perhaps you should think about returning to Bramwell soon."

  "Perhaps," Darrick said, trying not to offer any offense.

  One of the fishermen called Dahni away, raising his voice impatiently. She gave Darrick a last, lingering look, then turned in a swirl of her short skirt and walked away.

  At the next table, the gambler had another bit of good fortune, praising the Light while the other men grumbled.

  Pushing thoughts of the strange bracelet from his mind, Darrick returned his attention to his meal. Swearing off wine for the rest of the gambler's turn at the gaming table meant the nightmares would be waiting on Darrick when he returned to his rented room. But the caravan would be in town for another day before the merchants finished their trading. He could drink until he was sure he wouldn't be able to dream.

  Fog rolled throu
gh the streets and made the night's shadows seem darker and deeper as Darrick followed the gambler from the tavern two hours later. He tried to remember the man's name but wasn't surprised to find that he couldn't. Life was simpler when he didn't try to remember everything or everyone. On the different caravans he hired onto as a sellsword, there were people in charge, and they had a direction in which they wanted to go. Darrick went along with that.

  "I had a good night at the table tonight," the gambler confessed as they walked through the street. "As soon as I get back to my room, I'll pay you what we agreed on."

  "Aye," Darrick said, though he couldn't remember what amount they had agreed on. Usually it was a percentage against a small advance because a true gambler could never guarantee that he would win, and those who could were cheats and would guarantee a fight afterward.

  Darrick gazed around at the street. As the tavern bouncer had said, the town had poor lighting. Only a few lamps, staggered haphazardly and primarily centered near the more successful taverns and inns as well as the small dock lit the way. The heavy fog left a wet gleam on the cobblestones. He looked for a sign, some way of knowing where he'd ended on this journey, not really surprised that he didn't know where he was, and not truly caring, either. Many of the towns he'd been to in the last few months had tended to blur into each other.

  The sound of the gambler's in-drawn breath warned Darrick that something was wrong. He jerked his head around to the alley they'd just passed. Three men bolted from the alley, hurling themselves at Darrick and the gambler. Their blades gleamed even in the fog-dulled moonlight.

  Darrick drew his cutlass, dropping the jug of wine he carried under one arm. By the time the ceramic jug shattered across the poorly fit cobblestones, he had his cutlass in hand and parried a blow aimed to take off his head. Fatigued as he was, with the wine working within him, it was all Darrick could do to stay alive. He stumbled over the uneven street, never seeing the fourth man step out behind him until it was too late.