Wanderer's Song

by P. E. Padilla

  “‘We shall see if that will ever come to pass.’ Phen told him. ‘Now go, and tell your king what happened here this day.’

  “Codaghan, the god of war, spat and cursed. ‘Mercy?’ he bellowed. ‘You fought a beautiful battle for an entire day, a tale worthy of being told for centuries to come, and you end with mercy?’

  “In a rage, he rushed to where Trikus Phen sat amongst the bodies of those he had slain, cleaning his sword and staring at the corpses surrounding him.

  “‘Trikus Phen,’ Codaghan screamed as he arrived. ‘Do you know who stands before you?’

  “The image of the god Codaghan was well known to Trikus. He was a man over seven feet tall, impossibly muscled, and wearing tight-fitting armor of a golden metal stronger than steel yet lighter than leather. Weapons were strapped all across his massive chest, waist, back, and tree-trunk legs. He wore no helmet, instead letting his long, red hair float upon the breeze.

  “Trikus fell to his knees in front of the god. ‘You are Codaghan, the god of warfare,’ he said, bowing his head.

  “‘And do you honor me, Trikus of Salamus?’ the god asked him.

  “‘I do, my lord, more than any other. Are you not the god of all that is my life?’

  “‘Then why is it that you would allow your foe to live?’ He pointed toward the retreating figure of Starin. ‘Why did you not finish your foe and grant him a glorious death?’

  “Trikus looked at Codaghan, puzzled. ‘There was no reason to end his life. He was defeated and could do no further harm.’

  “‘He could do harm!’ Codaghan yelled. ‘He may continue to do harm! He will heal and he will come to you again, in the future, and maybe you will be the one to fall by his sword.’

  “‘I do not think so,’ Trikus said calmly, ‘but if I erred, it was in ignorance, not weakness.’

  “‘Ignorance is weakness,’ Codaghan screamed, ‘as is mercy.’

  “Trikus stayed silent, knowing that no words would ease the god’s anger. But Codaghan was not finished, his rage building by the moment. The things he had heard, that Trikus could challenge the god of war himself, burned through his mind.

  “‘You have no right to live, no right to call yourself a warrior,’ Codaghan said. And then he struck Trikus as he knelt before him. His great mace slammed down upon the hero, casting him to the ground and dazing him.

  “Still, Trikus was a warrior and his body, tempered by countless battles and training, moved to save him. He rolled to evade the next strike, then he came up onto his knees, flicking his sword out at the god attacking him. It scored a long scratch on Codaghan’s armor, all the way across the belly. This enraged the god even more.

  “Regaining his feet and shaking his head to clear it, Trikus snatched up his shield just in time to intercept the mace coming at him again. The force of it knocked him from his feet and launched him into the air, his arm going instantly numb from the contact. He landed several yards away, stumbling upon landing, but regaining his feet quickly.

  “Codaghan pressed the attack, battering at the hero relentlessly. Trikus Phen, for his part, fought valiantly, scratching the god’s armor in several places and finding targets at the joints that drew blood from Codaghan, the god of war himself. In the end, Phen’s shield was battered and broken, his sword notched and dull, and the god of war, untiring and stronger than the mere mortal, proved to be too great an opponent.

  “The god smashed the arm Trikus threw up to block his mace, then crushed his shoulder, followed by the breaking of his legs. Trikus Phen lay on his back, looking up at the vengeful god, knowing his life was over. Codaghan screamed at the mortal, spittle flying as he cast curses upon the dying man. With a final swing of Codaghan’s massive mace, the hero of men knew no more.

  “However, Mellaine, the goddess of the natural world, had chanced upon the final scene of the battle and watched from afar as the god of war unfairly defeated the mortal. As soon as the red-haired god departed, she hurried to the man, hoping against hope he still lived.

  “He did.

  “Mellaine could not interfere in the combat, being no match for Codaghan, but she could help the mortal after, she thought. She could use her powers to heal him, perhaps allow him to live. She took him deep into her secret forest home where no other god ever came, and she set the dying man upon a bed of moss. Then she began her work.

  “Using all her power, and aided by herbs and fruit and other things in the natural world that had curative properties, she snatched back Trikus from the gates of the realm of Percipius, the god of death. Soon, the man was sleeping peacefully, the danger past.

  “As Trikus Phen healed, Mellaine spoke with him. He thanked her for her aid and promised his life and his whole power in her service. She delighted in the spirit of the man. Though he was a warrior and hero, she found in him a kindred spirit in the ways of nature, a spirit he showed when he spared Starin’s life.

  “Within a fortnight, the goddess had fallen in love with the hero, and he with her. No longer concerned with the world of men and the warfare of nations, he asked if he could remain in her domain, loving her until his mortal lifespan ended. She consented, and he lived out the rest of days with her.

  “In not too many years, Mellaine bore a daughter to Trikus, and they called her Osulin, a demi-god with her mother’s powers of nature and her father’s human sensibilities. He taught his daughter about the mortal world and delighted in her and her mother as nothing he had ever experienced before, including the combat he had once loved so.

  “Before his death, Mellaine had told her human husband and love, ‘It was by fate’s hand that I observed your act of heroism and your vicious beating by Codaghan. Perhaps it was for some reason important to your kind or mine that I saw and helped you and found love with you. I have delighted in you, my love, and count the years with you among my most precious.’

  “Trikus, his breath failing as he heard it, answered her. ‘There,’—he pointed toward Osulin, a beautiful woman where just the day before she had been a small girl—‘there is your reason, my true and greatest love. It is for our daughter that I was spared, a great purpose no other has ever had the privilege of serving. She will be a comfort and protector when there are none in the world.’ He kissed his wife, the goddess, gently on the lips, and then passed on from the world into Percipius’s realm.

  “Mellaine mourned her husband for a hundred years after that…and she does still. When the gentle spring rains come upon the land, it is her, weeping for the one she lost. Though she has left the land, her tears remain still.

  “And Osulin? Her great love for her father and his people moved her to do great works in the land. When the time came for the gods to flee Dizhelim and to forsake the humans upon it, she alone remained of them, working her good works as her father said she would. And for this, we can feel blessed.”

  The old fiddler took another sip from his cup, bowed his head, and sat amongst the crowd.

  Aeden thought about the story long after the campfire had died and all his family had gone to bed. He sat and watched the embers dim and finally wink out, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the blackness all around him.

  Had he been spared for some reason also? Was there a purpose to his surviving being beaten to death by his own clan, his own father? Could there be something he was meant to do?

  It had always troubled him, his living and Seam dying. Why? Was it pure dumb luck or something grander, more profound? Magic still lived in the world, and the fates still touched events occasionally even now, but was he important enough that they would intervene on his behalf? Or was life simply not finished causing him pain, and so let him live and hope, waiting for the right time to take it all away?

  He sat for long hours, wrestling with his thoughts, until he went off to sleep. He would not find the answers in the darkness or in the stars shining above him. Maybe he would never find them.

  21

  “I want to travel the world,” Fahtin told Aeden as they res
ted after a grueling sparring session, both of them lying on their backs on the grass and looking up at the tree boughs high above them.

  “You already travel the world,” he told her. “That’s what the Gypta do.”

  “No, I mean I want to travel to all of the world. We only make a circuit of the largest continent, Promistala. We do not visit the smaller continents to the south and the islands around them. I want to see it all, to witness miracles and solve mysteries and experience adventure.”

  “You’re daft,” Aeden said. “Adventure is another word for danger. The world is full of it. Why would you want to put your life at risk? I can see enjoying the glory of battle, but why would you go looking for ways to injure yourself, like by crossing a stretch of water you cannot see the other side of. It’s crazy.”

  “Then what is your wish, if you are going to discourage mine?”

  “I…I’m not sure,” he said. “I would like to find the answers to questions, too, but I’m not sure that I have dreams or goals for my life. Before, all I wanted was to be a clan warrior, but now, it seems enough that I am alive. Too much, sometimes.”

  Fahtin rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin up on her hands, elbows in the grass. “What kind of questions do you have that you need answers to?”

  Aeden sat up, plucked a long blade of grass from in front of him, and started tearing it into thin strips. “I don’t know. Why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I to do, to be? There are so many questions. I don’t know what my life holds for me.”

  Fahtin laughed, the melodious sound that made him smile no matter what mood he was in. “That’s normal, Aeden. Most people don’t know what the future holds for them. Most don’t dedicate their entire lives to one thing as your clans do. It means you’re human. We have to live one day at a time and see what comes to us. There’s no way of telling what tomorrow will hold.”

  “That’s not true,” he said stubbornly. “There is prophecy and foretelling. Jehira has the talent for it. She can sometimes tell the future.”

  “Yes, sometimes. Most of the time, though, she can’t. She doesn’t even know what will happen in her own life. If she did, Raki’s family would never have been killed like they were.”

  “Well,” Aeden said, “then there’s the Song of Prophecy, the Bhagant. It tells the future.”

  “Supposedly,” Fahtin countered.

  “What do you mean? You don’t believe in prophecy?”

  “Oh, I guess I do, but who knows when it will happen? It could be next year or it could be another thousand years from now. That’s not much of a guide to base your life on.”

  Aeden sighed and threw the ruined piece of grass on the ground. “I guess you’re right. I just wish I knew what would happen or what I should be doing. I feel as if I’m missing something I should be doing. Do you understand that?”

  “I do,” Fahtin said. “I understand that your life has been turned inside out over the last five years. I wish I could tell you what to do, what your purpose is, but I don’t even know my own.” She laughed. “We’ll just have to face it together and figure it out when it happens. How about that?”

  Aeden laughed along with her. “Yes, Fahtin, I think I like the sound of that. We will figure it out and face it together, as family should.”

  “Promise me,” she said, “that if I help you try to find the answers to your questions, you will go with me to explore the world.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say.”

  “No, Aeden. Promise me. Give me your word that you will take me with you to explore the world. It’s my dream.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I promise to take you with me if I go explore the world or have adventures.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. I have to go and help mother with some things. Women’s work. I’ll see you later, ok?”

  “I’ll see you later. I think I’ll stay here and practice with my fiddle. It’s nice and quiet here.”

  She got to her feet, brushed the grass from her clothes, winked at him, and skipped toward the wagons. Even skipping, she moved provocatively. Some poor man was going to get good and trapped by that one. Aeden chuckled.

  Instead of reaching for his fiddle right away, he ran through the Bhagant in his mind. He had memorized the entire Song and repeated it to himself several times a day to make sure he never forgot a line.

  Without thinking about it, he had stopped reciting it in his mind and was singing it out loud, though not very loud. Just barely above a whisper.

  Before he was finished with the first verse, that unique sensation of energy surged up within his body. As always, it filled him not just with power, but wonder that it did so. He continued with the rest of the Song.

  By the fifth verse, his body was full to bursting with what could only be magical energy. He had never sung that much of the Song before. What would happen if he continued?

  Aeden stopped singing, turning his full attention to the power inhabiting him. He moved his body, noting the changes it made to the energy. He made one of the gestures of the Raibrech and he felt the power in him respond, acting as if it was ready for command, an obedient pet.

  It gave Aeden an idea. He went through the motions he had learned and practiced all those years ago, the motions he failed to use correctly in his trial, the motions whose failure caused him to be beaten almost to death. He performed Skinning the Highland Cat.

  There was some kind of resistance within him, a blockage of some sort, which seemed to be holding the magic back, out of his reach. He thought back to his trial, and before. Why had the other trainees been able to use it but not him? He had practiced, perfected the motions while many of them were sloppy and vague in their gestures.

  The words of command? He had said them while practicing, pronounced them correctly, but Master Solon constantly told him to say them louder, to speak up. What was different about him from the other kids?

  He was silent, that’s what. Because of that recurring dream, he had always said as little as possible. Could that have prevented the magic, something so simple as not being talkative?

  Aeden began to sing again, feeling the power within him build. When it seemed that he would burst from it, he said the words of power loudly while performing the proper motions. “Feat. Gate. Adehal.”

  The force thrummed within him, surging forward but running into the resistance he felt earlier. He repeated the words, louder, almost shouting them.

  Finally, when he was about to give up, a wall inside him broke. Something snapped, not painful but not altogether pleasant, either. The power rushed into his hands and did as he bid it. A tiny blade of magic struck out at a branch in front of him, shearing off its end.

  It was a weak thing, barely more than a small child could have done with his hands, but it was magic. He had called the clan magic. He was not a failure, just late in coming into his power. His quiet nature, something that had always set him apart, had prevented him from using it before. With his new family, though, he had found his voice.

  Aeden slumped to a nearby fallen log, feeling as if he had been in battle all day. He dripped sweat. The internal conflict had sapped his energy, and he wondered if it would be that way always, or if he would grow more accustomed to it. He tried another simple motion and said the accompanying words. This time, there was no resistance and the magic came easily, though weak. There was his answer. He had but to practice, and maybe his power would grow.

  But what if this was as powerful as he would become? What if it wasn’t just his silent nature that affected his use of the magic? If he could not gain strength in his spell casting, what use would it be? The paltry blade he had created wouldn’t help in combat, other than to distract. He worried, but he was too fatigued to experiment further.

  So be it. If he would be weak, he would use his weak abilities to his best advantage. If he could only create distractions, then that was what he would do. The important thing was that he had manifested enough of the magic
to have passed the Trial of Magic. Sure, he was five years too late, but it made him feel as if maybe, just maybe, he didn’t deserve the death his clan had almost given him. That would have to do. For now.

  22

  As the caravan grew closer to lands that Aeden knew, he kept himself busy with helping Payta, training with Fahtin and Raki, occasionally playing his fiddle, and practicing magic whenever he got a spare moment. He wasn’t sure why he kept the magic secret from his friends, but for some reason he didn’t want to reveal his ability to them until it was more reliable. And more impressive.

  The magic seemed to get easier to control with practice. He knew all the forms and the words, at least the ones for the simple spells, so he had plenty of options for practice. As he did, he saw his strength increasing. Slowly. It gave him hope, though, that he may attain enough power to effectively use the magic against a foe. He kept practicing and assuring himself it was true.

  “I recognize this area,” he told Fahtin when the caravan had pulled up to camp for the night. “This is where we stayed after you found me, where I healed up and was added to the family.”

  Fahtin flashed her smile at him. “It is. I wasn’t sure if you would recognize it. It has been a long time.”

  “I’d not forget this place. Ever.”

  Her smile slipped a little. “Are they bad memories?”

  “No,” he said gently. “The memories here are good ones. This was where I gained a family after my other had cast me out. The bad memories are of the place you found me, over there.” He pointed toward where they had found him, almost dead. It was barely a mile away from their camp.

  Fahtin nodded. “Do you want to spar a little before we do our supper chores? My muscles are cramped from sitting on the wagon all day.”

  “Some of us didn’t have that luxury,” he said to her with a smirk. “Some of us had to ride, or even walk.” Aeden caught sight of Raki coming toward them.