“Look, mate,” Sherwin spat at Roger, “I don’ want to stay in yer flamin’ ’ouse. I was ’appy to live outdoors. All I wanted was to be near ’im.”
He jerked a thumb in Rafen’s direction. Sitting at the small, scratched table in the poorly furnished kitchen, Rafen realized Sherwin was talking in the past tense. Sensing the tension, Francisco timidly raised his hand and said something about going “for firewood now, comrades”.
Even though he was identical to Rafen, Francisco’s mannerisms were entirely different. The way he carried himself, held his mouth, and used his eyes spoke of a softness and uncompromising elegance Rafen didn’t possess. Unlike Rafen, Francisco was not one to go sailing into conflict. He fairly flew out the kitchen door and along the grassy lane before the house.
“You don’t want this anymore?” Rafen said quietly.
“Oh,” Sherwin said, “I get it now. Yer want me to ’ang around and be yer servant all the time, isn’ tha’ right?”
Even taller and ganglier than he had been five months ago, Sherwin towered in the kitchen. His fair-skinned face, framed by long, messy, straw-colored hair, was livid as he tried to stare Rafen down with sky blue eyes.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Rafen said, rising.
Roger raised placating hands.
“Now, Rafen,” he said calmly, “if Sherwin sees the need to go now, all I can say is that he is in the right. The king did say that humans who are not in the king’s favor, as you are, suffer at the hands of the pure-blooded Sianian citizens. They aren’t received in such a friendly manner.”
“Sherwin has just as much right to stay in Siana as I do,” Rafen said loudly.
“Never mind,” Sherwin said. “I don’ care, all right? Yeh’re at the New Isles palace ’alf the time anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Rafen said.
“I know what yer doin’,” Sherwin said. “Yer don’ care to be around anyone but ’er. Every time I say somethin’ like ‘let’s go ’unting, let’s spar, let’s do somethin’’, yer say no and go around all moony and—”
“Shut your face!” Rafen yelled.
He turned panicked eyes on his pale-faced father, who was placidly smoothing his shiny brown hair on the top of his pebble head. Obviously, Roger had not understood what Sherwin was saying, because he probably would have burst a nerve if he had known about Rafen and the Secra Etana. Rafen couldn’t risk Roger telling anyone else that his filthy-blooded human son cared for the heir to the throne.
“NO, YER SHUT YEHRS!” Sherwin bellowed. “Yer always trainin’ alone or with ’er and preparin’ for some position in government yeh’ll never get. I ’eard yer talkin’ to ’er the other day when yer met in the Woods.” Sherwin put on an irritating high voice. “‘All Sheer-win wants to do is run around in the Woods like a child’ – just as if yer were Queen Arlene.”
“I didn’t say that!” Rafen shouted, although he was floundering. He hadn’t realized Sherwin had been listening in on a private meeting. “What business was it of yours?”
“WHAT BUSINESS WAS IT OF MINE TO COME ’ERE IN THE FIRS’ PLACE?” Sherwin roared, and Roger made halfhearted flapping motions evidently meant to decrease the volume. “YER ONLY EVER WANTED ME AROUND WHEN YER HAD NO FAMILY, NO PRETENSIONS TO GREATNESS, AND NO GIRL.”
“You were all right as a friend,” Rafen said in a low, dangerous voice, “until you started listening to private conversations and being a prating fool.”
The blue veins in Sherwin’s neck stood out as he struggled to find something to blast Rafen with. It was futile. He flung open the door and threw himself out of it, sending Francisco sprawling as he brought in the firewood. Leaving Rafen’s lookalike lying in a heap of misshapen sticks, Sherwin broke into one of the thumping and unusually fast runs characteristic of him. He receded into the distance rapidly.
Roger raised one eyebrow in gratification.
*
It was a spring that brought back memories of last year, when they had all been shut up in Fritz’s Hideout, with no hope of liberation. All that had changed, partially because Rafen had decided to leave and attempt winning Siana back from the Lashki and the Tarhians without waiting for Prince Robert Selson and his plans. He, Sherwin, Etana, and Francisco had braved the Woods alone, and unintentionally set into motion the Pirate King Sirius Jones’ schemes for the conquest of Siana and the Lashki’s schemes for Rafen’s murder. Neither of these goals came about, however. Rafen ran Sirius through in a fight for his life and shortly after survived the Lashki’s attempt to destroy his soul. To annihilate the power of the Lashki’s curse, which had been based on the Pirate King’s favorite weapon, Etana had splintered the dagger Sirius had given Rafen. She had returned it to Rafen in pieces. Because it had bad memories, Rafen had concealed it beneath a plank in the floor of his house. He guessed he wasn’t the only one with unwanted recollections. During his struggle with the Lashki, Rafen had wounded him, and the ghoul hadn’t shown his decaying face since, leaving Siana to the Sianians… as it always should have been.
Sherwin’s disappearance a month ago still ate away at Rafen. He couldn’t forgive himself for the things that he had said. Though he had been angry at Sherwin for a while, as time had passed, he had realized how wrong he was. And Sherwin was right. He was obsessed with training, because he knew the Lashki would be back. Rafen would have to fight him again, and next time, he didn’t want to fail. Rather than falling prey to another Soul Breaker’s Curse or another trip to Nazt, he yearned to destroy his mother’s murderer for good. Secondly, Rafen was obsessed with Etana. He couldn’t help it. Part of him was glad that Sherwin was gone, and no longer interfering. However, Rafen sensed that now more than ever, his friend needed him.
Ignoring the white spirits that now permanently floated across his vision, he inhaled the fragrance of the creepers on the surrounding courtyard walls and gave a few experimental swings with his sword.
Along with the horrible experience of the Soul Breaker’s Curse, Sirius’ death had nearly put Rafen off fighting for good. After recovering his health, Rafen had struggled with himself, deciding whether or not to continue training. The fact that he was training in order to take lives, which Sirius’ death had so dramatically demonstrated, was abhorrent to him. He frequently dreamed about Sirius in his last moments. Yet without the Pirate King’s death, Siana would never have been free.
We’re all murderers at heart, Sirius had said.
Rafen believed it with everything in him. He paused, momentarily chilled. Yes, his hands and heart were already dirty. As for the horrors of the Lashki and Nazt, Rafen knew he would have to face them again whether he trained or not. He might as well be prepared and do what he was born to do: fight for Siana. There was no one better suited to killing in Zion’s name than he.
At first, when he had lost part of the fifth finger of his left hand, he felt it had changed the delicate balance involved in fencing. Now he was used to it. Thrusting twice more, he hoped Etana was watching. He had pulled off his coat and rolled his sleeves high, deliberately trying to show his middling muscles, even though he knew it was hopeless.
He had been malnourished in his childhood, and was now at least a head shorter than the average sixteen-year-old, and unlikely to grow any more. Even his brother, who had been well fed in his early years, was taller than him, and certainly better groomed. Rafen’s hair was a disheveled mass of black curls, and his skin was the olive tone of his mother’s. His dark blue eyes were perhaps the only mildly interesting part of him, simply because he had seen far too much for his own good. They looked too old for the rest of him.
Etana appeared in the doorframe at the opposite end of the courtyard, and he lowered his sword as she stepped into the sunlight.
“Practicing?” she asked, smiling.
The Sixth Secra and heir to the throne, Etana had an unearthly beauty about her. Her dark red hair, streaked with gold, fell past her shoulders in glowing waves, and her piercing blue eyes gleamed with a z
est for life. She had high cheek bones and ivory skin, and in the past six months, she had grown tall and willowy. Her mannerisms, both opinionated and vivacious at the same time, held a constant fascination for Rafen.
He inclined his head. “Demus is a hard task master.”
They had been learning together with Demus ever since Halamiërii, the fifth month, when Rafen had recovered sufficiently from the Soul Breaker’s Curse. Demus was an eccentric philosopher whom Etana had purposely adopted as her tutor, simply to infuriate the nobility.
“He’s terribly unconventional,” she often told Rafen with delight.
Demus had ideas about kesmal that defied the rules in the oldest books. Strangely enough, he was seldom wrong, and Etana called him “progressive”.
Still, Rafen had hoped and even asked the king and queen for a more thorough education. King Robert had great hopes of “bringing old Arlene ’round”. Rafen knew the king’s powers of persuasion with his wife… he would not be installed in government any time soon. In the meantime, King Robert was supplying him with numerous books on warfare, Sianian government procedures, and kesmal. He had arranged these lessons with Demus behind his wife’s back and was constantly struggling to keep them secret. Even General Jacob had refused to teach Rafen further fencing.
The whole thing made Rafen furious. How could two people he had loved and trusted – Queen Arlene and the General Jacob – ruin everything now? After all he had done? Yet, now was not the time to give up. Demus had high standards. Rafen kept up with all his reading and practiced kesmal at home, knowing Demus would notice if he hadn’t.
“Demus is hard because he is good,” Etana said. “I daresay, you must be cold without your coat.”
Rafen glanced up at the vibrant blue sky above their courtyard between the inner and outer walls of the New Isles palace. “I’m fine,” he said.
“Very well.” She moved closer in her sweeping scarlet dress. Her servants had lathered her in perfume; she smelled intoxicating. “Don’t damage your health though. Have you had any more of those, ah, horrid seizures of yours?”
Since the Soul Breaker’s Curse, Rafen had had one seizure. He had known it was somehow related to the Curse, because when he had woken, he found it hard to hear other people above the spirits in his head.
“I haven’t had any more,” Rafen said. “I expect it was a rarity.”
Demus passed through the doorframe, and Rafen’s heart plunged at the introduction of a third party.
Demus was a hunchbacked man who gratified Rafen by being his height. His face was prematurely wrinkled, and graying strands of hair hung about it. His eyes were flecked with amber. He carried his usual gnarled stick with the black-billed bird’s head.
“I am glad to find my pupils practicing,” he said sarcastically.
Etana laughed lightly. “Now, Demus, we need some joy in life.”
“I will humor you this once, Your Highness,” Demus said, with a wry smile.
He moved over to the stone bench against the courtyard’s left wall. Rafen took the hint and followed him, sitting down. Etana sat on Rafen’s left, and the courtyard seemed to become much hotter suddenly. He couldn’t help feeling like a traitor when this sort of thing happened. Sherwin was right: he had completely lost his head over Etana.
“I felt today that we should review the differences between daniit kesmal and jarl, mostly for My Lord Rafen’s sake.” Without waiting for a response, Demus continued. “Daniit kesmal is the ability to affect the physical, and jarl is…?” He paused and looked at Rafen.
“The ability to influence the spiritual,” Rafen said, staring at the contours of Etana’s face.
Demus caught his look and raised his eyebrows. “My Lord is concentrating very hard.”
“Yes,” Rafen said, wrenching himself back to his studies.
Demus snorted. “We have ascertained that Etana’s kesmal is largely daniit, or blood kesmal,” he said, “barring perhaps her ability to speak Mio Urmeea spontaneously, an ability that My Lord shares. However, My Lord Rafen also possesses the abilities to see spirits and transform into a wolf, which are both characteristics of jarl, or spirit kesmal.”
“Wait,” Etana said excitedly. “You must explain why you believe the ability to transform into a wolf is a form of spirit kesmal rather than blood kesmal. It has never been traditionally regarded that way.”
“Your Highness is correct,” Demus said. “It is my belief that we each have a spirit form that some of us can assume more naturally than others. In Rafen’s case, this would be the form of a wolf. This theory can be confirmed by the fact that those who have Spirit Awareness observe that souls come in a startling variety of forms. However, the ability to transform into the spirit form is something that is thought to be unique to Secrai, from which we can only assume that this particular skill of Rafen’s has come about from extended contact with you, Your Highness. Now My Lord Rafen must explain something to me.”
Rafen dragged his eyes from Etana to Demus, with some misgivings.
“Explain your ability to perform kesmal when it is conventionally accepted that humans have none,” Demus said. He stared ahead of himself now, as if he saw some distant pinprick of light he desired to reach. “When Zion created the world, he created two kinds of people: those who had to rely on their natural abilities and those who were able to perform kesmal. The main difference between humans and the Higher Beings is the humans’ inability to perform kesmal. Along with other minor points of comparison, humans have a tendency to be more mathematically minded, better architects, smiths, and so on. And while their eyesight is inferior to that of the Higher Beings, their voices not so clear, and their appearances more mundane, they are physically stronger than those who use kesmal to enhance their abilities. The false assumption about humans is that they are all shrewd and traitorous, which is a suspicion arising from the idea that they were somehow responsible for the advent of Nazt.” Demus rose and leaned heavily on his stick, gesturing to Rafen. “Excluding my last sentence, you seem very human.”
“Thanks,” Rafen said limply.
Etana bit back a smile. She was probably thinking about Rafen’s “mundane appearance”.
“And yet, despite all odds you have kesmal in your veins,” Demus said, moving to the center of the courtyard. “Which makes me wonder if our theories have been wrong, Rafen. Maybe humans are able to develop kesmalic abilities over time, when associating with the right people. Or maybe you were the victim of a kesmalic accident, as early as when you were in the womb. Is there any record of this?”
“His family’s appearance in our world, when he was about two, might have been that accident,” Etana said. “You and I agreed about two months back that this could have been because Richard Patrick was voyaging in the seas near where Rafen’s family arrived.”
Allegedly, only the Runi ki Hafa – Richard Patrick – had the ability to transfer people into and out of the other world. Rafen found the proposition that this was special ridiculous, because he knew he had brought Sherwin into the Mio Pilamùr. He had had a long conversation with Sherwin about it once. The whole thing was unnerving. Rafen would have wondered if he were more than the Fledgling but for one thing: the prophecies mentioned many times that Richard Patrick was destined to be the Fourth Runi. Rafen received no such honors. He was a mere human.
“Yes, yet I doubt this world travel would have influenced Rafen’s ability to do kesmal,” Demus answered Etana. “His Runiship was four years old at the time, and the ability to move a whole family from a distance would have been extraordinary alone. Perhaps another demonstration from Rafen will solidify my ideas about the Fledgling’s kesmal.”
He motioned for Rafen to rise. Rafen leapt up, relieved that the talk of kesmalic theory was over. For him, kesmal had no theory. It was an action, an instinct – an expression of his flaming spirit.
“We will do as we did the other day,” Demus said. “Focus on your control. Create a single, narrow beam that nearly reaches t
he opposite wall and then draw it back into nonexistence. Gently, now.”
Demus’ caution was not unwarranted. One time, Demus had instructed Etana and Rafen to hold hands and pass unseen kesmal between their arms without hurting each other, as an exercise on control. Rafen had managed, but was so hot that the next beam of his fire had been a localized explosion that had caused nearby guards to flee.
Yet, Rafen’s control was improving. Sometimes Demus would give Rafen private classes at night in the palace. He would purposely work Rafen far too hard and, with Rafen’s permission, even hurt him to see what Rafen’s abilities were like when he was under emotional or physical strain. At first, Rafen had performed poorly, as he had the night he had rescued the lords from the burning of New Isles. Gradually, however, he had discovered he could perform decent kesmal even when hurt, even when angry. His mind was his greatest ally. If he controlled it, focused his thoughts, pushed past pain and weakness until he used the muscular coordinations necessary for kesmal, he could perform it, whatever the circumstances.
Rafen breathed once, silently and quickly as Demus had taught him to do. Then he released a pure beam that brushed the wall opposite him before retracting into his extended fingers again. The action was so fast that it looked like a blinking, orange line.
“Yes,” Demus said slowly. “That is the most deadly of kesmal. The most controlled can do anything you would like it to… I cannot help thinking your ability is natural, Rafen. Are you certain your mother and father are humans? It must be hereditary.”
“My father certainly is,” Rafen said, unable to keep the scorn from his voice. “I know my mother was something more.”
“Yes,” Demus said. “Who knows how many of the Higher Beings spend their existence in the other world?” His amber eyes flicked to Rafen’s face. “You are more than you seem, My Lord. Much more.”
Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3) Page 37
