by J B Cantwell
I wanted to be outside, but I knew the comfort of seeing the sun would not greet me if I were to leave the cave.
Bevyn had eventually tired, and he lay on the ground across the cave from me with no pillow for his head.
Perhaps he might have used a loaf of bread.
But that was mean, I knew.
I stood up quietly and walked across the cave to the wall of weapons. The staff, it seemed, was the most coveted item, and Bevyn slept with it at his side. It was the only weapon that had allowed him to keep any of his magic in this place. For this reason, it seemed to me that it was his most powerful tool. I wondered what I might be able to do with a staff like that.
Zahn had a staff like Bevyn's, and he had nearly killed me with it. He'd strutted across the castle grounds with it in his hands when I was a little kid. A year ago, I might've thought him brave; weren't sorcerers supposed to be brave?
But now I saw the real Zahn. His staff hadn’t been a mark of strength but was instead a means of defense.
He was scared.
Though, the last time I had seen him, it was not the staff he wielded. He'd had something else in his hands, something I had never seen but only heard about.
A dragon's bone.
Father had told me the story of Urvar, the dragon who had guarded my mother from Zahn until the day she died. It was said that Urvar had given her a bone of his dead mate’s, and that when she returned to Eagleview, every one of Zahn's pupils had been able to wield it as a powerful magical staff.
But not Zahn, himself.
How it must have eaten at him. This thought brought a certain level of satisfaction to me, for it hadn’t been too long ago since Zahn had tried to kill me with it, finally having forced the dragon bone staff to yield to him.
But the day he chased me from the castle, I hadn’t been considering his weapons. Instead, I'd looked into his eyes. He’d wanted to kill me, expected to kill me. And it was a great surprise to all of us when he’d failed.
He was a different kind of coward from Bevyn. Bevyn had waited here, too scared to leave. But he also had a good reason to stay, one that didn’t involve fear at all. He was here to wait for the warrior who was destined to destroy his father. In this, he was brave. And in his guarding the book, he was brave.
Everyone had some of each in themselves, cowardice and bravery. This revelation was a good reminder to me.
Don't be too quick to judge.
Zahn, however, sought only to save his own life and to save himself from embarrassment. That seemed to be the most important thing of all to him. His pride.
I felt certain that eventually I would once again come face to face with him. And for that day, I would need practice.
I was ready to begin again, but Bevyn still slept at my feet. I reached out for the handle of the sword, and, like the book, it vibrated with my touch.
In a moment, the entire sword was on fire. I hadn't meant to set it alight, but now I put both hands on the hilt and removed it from the wall. The tip of the blade immediately hit the ground. I had been right; it was too heavy for me to carry.
The light went out, and yet the room remained bright. It was then that I realized Bevyn had awakened and that he stood behind me now with the tip of his staff sticking into my back. I dropped the sword and turned.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked.
"I was just… I just saw… I was just curious."
I wondered for a moment if he would kill me. Then I realized that his whole life would have been a waste if he were to do so.
"I wasn't going to steal it. I just wanted to see."
He pushed the tip of the staff into my shoulder, and his fire burned my skin. I lit my hands.
"Stop," I said.
He did not, and I gripped the wood with both hands, pushing it away from my body. Then, I wrested the staff from his grasp and threw it to the floor. For a moment, I thought to break it, but then I realized I would be breaking him in the process. This, his only means of defense. Without it, he would walk these lands, lost.
"I'm sorry," I said.
I bent over and went to pick up the staff, but his foot beat me to it. Maybe he thought I would try to steal it. Of course, I had no such idea. I put my hands up in the air and backed away, extinguishing my fire as I did.
Bevyn leaned over and retrieved the wood, glaring at me.
"This is mine," he said. "Touch it again, and I will kill you."
If it weren’t for the danger, I might’ve laughed. But laughter would be cruel in such a situation, not to mention false. My own power was almost weak in comparison to his. Not because I didn't have it in me, but because I didn't have experience. I had bested Zahn by the simple desire to save my own life. I didn't think. I just did.
Now that I thought about it, there was little doubt that Bevyn might be a much more dangerous man than I had given him credit for. He could abandon me, call forth his brother, or kill me in my sleep. Those were just a few of his options. In all of these ways, his powers were more dangerous than mine.
"Don't touch anything again," he said.
"I won't."
I pulled down the neckline of my tunic to investigate, and I found a welt where he had been pushing the wood up against me. I was forcefully reminded of the demented child from my dreams, his hand burning an excruciating mark into my forehead. This seemed, suddenly, not so different.
Only then, for a fleeting moment, did I doubt him. What if I was wrong? What if he was just as much an enemy as his brothers?
But I knew this couldn't be right. I had shared food with him, shared the cave floor with him, and he had already saved me from Phalen once.
I backed away from the wall and walked back to where I had slept.
"Do you want me to leave?" I asked.
He frowned, and I could tell that he was conflicted, too. We were both dangerous to each other.
"We had better get used to this," he said. “Or I fear we’ll kill one another in the process of trying to help."
He was right. Here we were, shut up in this tiny room, and our greatest danger stood before us: each other. He could kill me easily in my sleep, and I could kill him easily with my knives. I wondered how it would feel to face him down, his magic against mine. Would his magic be more powerful than Zahn's? Maybe. Bevyn was a descendent of the most powerful, evil man in our world.
He deserves respect.
That was something I had failed to give him until now. I sat down against the wall and waited for my teacher to proceed. It was then that he pulled out a loaf of bread and brought it over, dropping it on the floor before me.
"You already know how to do this," he said. "You’ve shown me your abilities with the water."
"But I'm not making more water," I said. "I'm simply bringing the water below the ground up to the surface."
"It's not that different," he said. "Put your hands on the loaf, then think about what you want."
I was skeptical, but I did as he said. I looked at the bread. I thought about the bread. I thought about what I wanted, which was more bread.
Nothing happened.
I looked up at him, concerned.
He looked concerned as well.
"Let's try something else," he said. "Try using the wand."
I picked up the wand where I'd left it near my pack. As before, it alighted as soon as I touched the wood. Maybe this would be the answer.
I pointed the wand at the bread and closed my eyes.
"Don't close your eyes, girl," he said, irritated.
He limped across the room to me, and I opened my eyes. It was stupid, I knew. But I was so nervous about what might happen that I was afraid to watch.
"I remember when I was your age," he said. "I was never the best at magic, despite who my father was. But you must not fear it, or it will overtake you. You’re the master here, not a wand." He took a couple of steps back. "Now, try again."
I had to try hard to keep my eyes open because I was so worried I m
ight hurt someone.
It's only bread.
Only fire magic, too.
I pointed the wand at the bread, lit the tip with fire, and thought hard about what I wanted. Slowly, a burn mark appeared on the crust. This excited me. I was finally getting somewhere, I thought. It was only when the burn mark grew to the size of my fist that I worried. I wasn't worried about burning the place down; we were in a cave after all. But what did this mean?
I looked up at Bevyn, searching for answers on his face. But there were none.
"Maybe we should stick to self-defense," he said.
I blushed deep red, and I was happy for the darkness. Though, when I looked up at him again, I didn't find a smugness on his face like I might’ve expected. Instead, he turned and picked up the sword, holding it out to me.
I stared at him unbelievingly.
"Take it," he said. "This was the one you wanted, wasn’t it?”
I pushed off the wall and made my way over to him. I stopped when I was just an arm's reach of the sword.
Doubt filled me, but I reached out for the hilt.
It was heavy, too heavy for me.
"Light it up," he said.
I looked down at the blade and smiled as I imagined trying to make bread multiply using a tool such as this.
I looked up at Bevyn and saw the frustration on his face. I quickly wiped the smile off of mine and did as he said.
It was easy to set the sword alight. It was easy for me to do that with most anything. But after a few moments of dragging the heavy tip across the floor, the sword began to lighten. Within moments I found I was able to lift it without effort. I wondered what had changed, why it was light now where it had been so heavy a few moments before. Maybe it had something to do with me having permission to use it.
"It's real silver," he said. "Made by my father, himself."
I backed away, dropping the sword to the ground as if it, too, had burned me. The fire flickered out, and we were in near darkness once more.
"What are you doing?" he scolded.
He lit his staff, bent down, and picked up the sword as if it were a treasure. I supposed it was to him.
"This is the most powerful tool I have," he said.
"I don't want it. I don't want anything that belongs to Torin."
He sighed heavily.
"Then nothing in this room will serve you. Everything here I took from my family. Or, rather, they threw it away."
"They threw these things away? But why?"
"These are just the scraps," he said. "Things they practiced with when they were children. Me as well, though I always had a higher level of respect for such things."
"What are their weapons like?" I could hardly imagine.
"My brothers are not unlike Fiends, though more powerful. You shouldn’t be so quick to discount these weapons. They may have come from unsavory hands, but they work more efficiently than any of them knew. This sword, for example, is made of pure silver, through and through. It is one of the first that my father ever made. In the end, he found that a staff was far more powerful than a sword. But everyone is different. For me, for many years, it was knives. They were the first to leave me powerless here in the dark. Then, the sword. And finally, I now see only the last life of this staff. Perhaps it’s been waiting for you to come along."
"Oh, I could never…"
He laughed. "We shall see."
He held out not the sword but his staff. My eyes widened with surprise.
"I can't take this."
"I'm not giving it to you. But you may use it. Now, again, multiply the bread."
On and on it and went. For days he put me through my paces with each weapon. Though each piece was powerful, I still preferred my knives. This training was not about stabbing people, but it was about hurting people. I was meant to use these items for defense.
Over many days I didn’t figure out how to multiply the bread, not even with Bevyn's staff. There was plenty of time for practice, and yet this particular action eluded me.
"It’s not so simple as it seems, now is it?” he asked me one morning. “It did take me many years to learn, and I daresay my product was nowhere near as nice as the first loaf I began with."
"Which of these did you use?"
He smiled, and, not for the first time, I wondered about his teeth. I didn't ask, just as I didn't ask about his leg. They were war wounds from his family, from a different kind of war than I was facing.
"You saw me make bread with my staff many days back now," he said. "But I first learned with my hands. Maybe you should try that again."
I had mastered so many things. I could best him in a duel no matter which tool he used by using only a single knife in my defense. I could split granite with just a look from my eyes. With the wand, I learned to cut things in two. This was the only thing I could do effectively with the bread; slice it. Throwing knives? No problem. Thrusting a sword at a moving target? No problem. But that bread haunted me. Not because I couldn't do it, but because it made me wonder about all the other things I couldn't do.
I knew there were many.
I knew that when I finally left those rooms, when I finally took off on my own again, dangers would face me that I couldn't yet imagine.
I had taken to sitting in the dark just outside the cave entrance. Only once did I see Phalen gliding through the valley below. I froze, unsure about what I should do. Bevyn had told me that his own magic had receded with the time he’d spent in these mountains. I wondered where Phalen spent most of his time. Maybe, if he were trapped here, the same thing would happen to him that had happened to his brother.
I wondered if there was a way to keep him tied to this place until he, too, lost his magic. Then again, the last thing I needed was to be faced with another of Torin's sons.
Tonight the sky was darker than usual. I jumped slightly when I heard Bevyn's voice behind me.
"What are you doing out here?" he whispered.
"I can't spend every moment inside that tiny cave," I said.
"It's the best way for you to survive."
"I don't see me winning any wars from inside," I said.
"You're getting restless. That's a good thing."
I knew what he was implying, knew that soon enough, I would be on my way, alone again.
"Will you come with me when I go?"
He laughed quietly, taking care to keep his voice low.
"And how do you expect me to follow you? Fly?"
"Maybe there's some way… somehow that I can…"
"No, there's no way. If there were, when you healed me weeks ago, it would have helped."
"Does it… hurt?" I looked down at his mangled leg.
"Of course, it hurts."
He struggled to sit down beside me, and we looked out at the valley together, just barely able to see the mountains beyond.
"What do you think you'll do when I go?" I asked.
He sighed heavily.
"After so many years of waiting, have you even given this topic any thought?" I asked.
"I suppose I will die," he said.
I frowned and looked over at him, though I could barely see him any more clearly than I could see the mountain range in the distance.
"Why would you say that?"
"Because it's true. I've been waiting for a warrior like you for nine-hundred years, waiting to train you, to help you. Now, we’ve done almost all we can. You can only learn so much from me."
I shook my head. "It's not fair. After all this time, you should get a rest."
"Shall I go on holiday?"
He jabbed me in my shoulder with his elbow. It was the closest thing to a joke I had ever heard him say.
"I guess not. But where will you go?"
"I suppose I’ll stay here," he said. "Where else would I go?"
"I don't know. Anywhere. The whole world isn’t at war. Not yet, anyway."
I could just barely see him shake his head in the darkness.
"Terrible
or not, this is my home."
"And what will you do when your staff finally refuses you?"
"I suppose I will travel to my hiding place, drink all my Light, and die, drunk on life itself."
"You know that won't work," I said. "I think you should take your Light and go to the Wild Lands. It's not an easy place, but it's easier than here, and you can see the sun."
"Ah, the sun," he said. "It has been a very, very long time. Though I doubt if I could make it that far, no matter how much Light I drink. You will have to do it for me. Lighten this sky. Maybe if you do away with my father, the clouds will clear, and I'll be able to see the sun once more."
I shook my head. "I don't know if I can promise that."
He struggled to get to his feet. Then he held out his hand to me.
"Come on," he said. "it's time for me to show you one last thing."
Chapter 7
"You must learn to possess another," he said.
I recoiled.
"No," I said. "No way. Doing that is evil. You want me to use your father's weapons on the world as he does?"
He shook his head.
"Without it, you will perish. It will be the only way you can defeat him or my brothers. The three of them have the skill. It’s one I've never learned, myself, but you must try."
I took a couple of steps back, alarmed.
"Is there no other way?" I asked.
"Not that I can see. They will all try to control you as they do the others if you don't learn. I'm afraid I'm not a very good teacher of this, but it's absolutely imperative that you learn."
I took a couple of tentative steps toward him again. He took this as a sign that I was willing.
He nodded his head.
"You won’t need weapons for this, just your hands. I've told you my brothers are much more powerful than I. This is one of their tricks. If, or rather when, you face off with them, you can use this to your advantage."
I frowned, unsure of what to say. I'd fought against the Wicks, possessed by Torin to enact all his rage against the world. Were there still men inside those shells?
"Now, this is more important and more difficult than the bread," he said. "You must concentrate with everything you have. Then push your power out of yourself and into another."
