The Innkeeper's Son

by Jeremy Brooks

  Soaking in the warm water was like a dream come true for Sim. His muscles and joints ached from the long journey across the Othoran Plains. He’d never ridden for so long in a saddle, so his hips and back were burning with pain. He just laid back in the tub, reveling in the way the water seemed to tingle his skin, soothing away all of his soreness. He closed his eyes and sighed. The orange gem rested against his chest. He reached for it rolling it around with his fingers. The encounter with Farrus crept into his mind, and he began to think of Maehril. He’d let her down. He wondered if she was alright. The water was incredibly relaxing. All of the soreness he’d felt before he sat in the tub was completely gone now. A picture took shape in his mind. A small skiff, its sails full of wind, gliding across a calm blue ocean. The image shifted, closing in on an old man sitting alone by the tiller. His leathery face with light blue eyes and a hawkish nose looked out at the horizon with worry. There was something urgent about him as though he were in a hurry. Sim thought he saw gills behind the man’s ears, but it seemed too strange a thing to be real. The image flashed again. This time he was looking at a girl, curled into a ball, sleeping peacefully in a compartment beneath the deck.

  Sim opened his eyes and sat up, trying to breathe. He had slid down beneath the surface of the water in the tub. Water spat out of his mouth as he coughed and gasped for air.

  “Sim? Are you alright?” Enaya called out with alarm from the next stall.

  “Fine. I’m fine,” he answered as he gradually regained his breath. “I just fell asleep for a moment and slid underwater.”

  “Fool,” he heard her mutter under her breath.

  “Enaya…did Mistress Hisha do something to the water?” he asked, wondering how all of his soreness had disappeared so quickly.

  “Yes, Sim. Mistress Hisha is a trival. She has strength in healing. That’s why I chose this inn.” Enaya sounded guarded as if she felt resigned to admit this to him.

  “I’m sorry if this makes me seem like a dumb child, Enaya, but what exactly is a trival?”

  He could hear her sighing.

  “A trival is someone who can wield the trivarial power. It’s a force of energy that exists all around us. Most believe it comes from a relationship between the two moons and our Earth. It was once the subject of much debate amongst trivals and scholars. Desirmor has outlawed the use of the trivarial power unless you register yourself at the castle in Fandrall. People born with the ability to use the trivarial power can do so only with permission from Desirmor himself. They usually end up working for the Imperial army or on traeggers and other things that require the power.”

  “So that’s how traeggars can move so fast?” he asked. “They have someone using the trivarial power to make the ship go faster?”

  “That’s right, Sim,” she answered. “Everyone who can wield the power is different. Some are strong in healing like Mistress Hisha. Others can do things with wind or water. Those that show the most ability, the strongest ones, are usually put to death. Desirmor doesn’t like to take any chances.”

  Sim thought about that for a moment. He wondered how many people Desirmor had murdered over the centuries. A pit of anger began to swell in his gut.

  “What about you then?” he asked her. “You can use the power. I’ve seen you. What did Desirmor say about you?”

  She was quiet for a few moments. “I never registered. My power is a secret. There are others like me who keep their power a secret. Mistress Hisha is one. Trivals who choose to hide their ability use a yellow triangle as a symbol, so we can find each other. So we don’t feel alone. The sign outside with the seashell has a yellow triangle in the shell. You have to know what to look for, but it’s there. Mistress Hisha will help us as best she can because she and I are sisters in our small society of secret trivals.”

  Sim could hear in her voice that she was reluctantly telling him about herself. They had butt heads several times over the past few days, and Enaya could be stubborn, pompous and difficult, but when she let her guard down and showed her fragile side, Sim found her very endearing.

  “What if you were found out?” he asked her quietly.

  “If the wrong person saw me using the power, I would be put to death.”

  “I won’t let anyone harm you, Enaya,” Sim said resolutely. He felt a desperate need to reassure her. “I swear it.”

  “Thank you, Siminus.”

  They finished their baths in silence. Sim thought about what Enaya had told him. He wondered if he was a trival. There had been so many times that he’d had glimpses of the future. Surely that had to come from some kind of magic. He resolved to ask Enaya more about it later.

  He also thought about Maehril. There was no mistaking the vision he’d just had. That had definitely been Maehril curled up in a ball in that ship with the strange old man. Sim didn’t feel like she was in danger though. The old man had a gentle look about him, and Sim guessed that the concern he had seen on the man’s face was probably for her. While he had no idea where she was, or how she had ended up there, Sim had a strong feeling that she was safe. And if nothing else, at least he had something to tell Farrus.

  ******************************************************************

  That night Sim lay on his bed waiting for the right time to go down to the common room and meet with Farrus. He felt as good as he had in days. His body felt brand new thanks to the bath in Mistress Hisha’s healing water. His belly was full of a delicious goat meat stew that had reminded him of something from his mother’s kitchen. And he was about to meet with someone that knew him. Farrus had always been like an uncle to Sim. Seeing him earlier that day had made the anguish and depression lighten, as if his old friend was like a little piece of normalcy in a world full of chaos.

  It was also nice to get a break from the two women. Enaya was beautiful, but she was difficult to be around. She was constantly moody and temperamental. Like most women Sim had met, she always assumed she was right. Women tended to think men were children who couldn’t do anything for themselves. He’d watched Bella chide and scold Sevin for years, and wondered how Sevin always had a smile on his face whenever she walked away. Sevin must have truly loved his wife to put up with the constant barrage of admonishments. Maybe someday he would figure out how to nod and smile when a woman was talking nonsense to him.

  Sim sat up in his bed and listened. He was waiting for Enaya to go to sleep. Givara would probably be standing guard by the door, but Sim was hoping he could convince her to let him go have a drink or two. Enaya would never have let him. She probably thought he was still too young to drink.

  He crept to the door doing his best to avoid any loose floor boards that would creak loudly. Despite his best efforts, he still managed to step on a few. The door made a low squeak as he pulled it open and peered out into the hallway. Enaya’s door was closed, and Givara was nowhere to be found. Creeping past their door, Sim felt himself begin to sweat. He almost laughed. Why was he afraid of them catching him sneaking around? It was none of their business. He wasn’t theirs to command. All this secrecy was foolish. Straightening up, he walked normally down the rest of the hallway and down the stairs to the common room, only looking over his shoulder one time to see if their door had opened.

  The common room was sparsely filled. There were several men and women sitting at one table and a few more at the bar. All were dressed in a similar fashion with white linen shirts or blouses and simple brown pants or skirts. Sim guessed that most of these people were attendants of some noble vacationing at one of the resorts. Enaya had mentioned that the inns in the city would probably be occupied by people working for the vacationers.

  Farrus sat alone at a table in the back corner. It was the furthest table from the bar, and there weren’t any windows nearby. No-one even spared Sim a glance as he strode across the room and took a seat at Farrus’ table. Farrus had taken the liberty of ordering Sim a pint of ale, as there was a sweaty glass waiting on the table in front of Sim’s seat.

&nb
sp; Farrus silently tipped his glass to Sim, encouraging him to take a sip. The draught was bitter, nothing like Sevin's smooth brews, but it was cold. Sim had never had cold ale before. He couldn’t imagine how it could even be served cold. Perhaps Mistress Hisha used her powers for things other than healing. The cold ale was truly refreshing, despite the sub-par taste. It made Sim wonder how good Sevin’s might have been had he only been able to chill it.

  “Bitter…” Farrus said in his gruff monotone, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “But damn good. Cold.”

  “Damn good,” Sim agreed, taking another sip.

  “So…how are you holding up?” Farrus asked with a look of concern in his steely gray eyes.

  “I let them die, Farrus.” Sim nearly broke down, choking back the sudden onslaught of tears. He looked shamefully down into the pint glass clutched between his hands. “I was right there. I watched it happen through the window, and I did nothing.”

  “There was nothing you could do.” He wasn’t trying to reassure Sim. He was simply stating a fact.

  “I could have done something. I could have charged into that room and run my sword through the Blood Lord’s chest.” The tears started pushing out to his cheeks, one by one like drips from a water tap.

  “We were afraid this would happen,” Farrus said glumly. He itched at his eyes as though he were fighting with his own emotions. “I told them you needed to know what was going on. I knew you’d blame yourself.”

  Sim rubbed his eyes. His pain quickly turned to anger, and he glared at Farrus across the table. “What is going on Farrus? I keep getting bits and pieces from Enaya, but I still don’t know why my parents had to die. What do you know?”

  Farrus sighed and took a long haul from his ale, emptying the glass. He looked around the room uncomfortably.

  “Looks like we’ve got company,” he said at last, motioning past Sim to the stairs.

  Sim turned and cursed when he saw Enaya, followed by Givara, walking smugly towards them.

  “I knew you’d find us some trouble eventually, Siminus,” Enaya announced, taking a seat at the table. She motioned with a flourish of her slender fingers to Mistress Hisha for a round as Givara took her seat, twisting to face Farrus, her right hand hidden beneath her cloak, in the vicinity of her sword hilt.

  “Can’t you just leave me alone for once?” Sim practically pleaded with exasperation.

  Enaya acted shocked, batting her eyes and looking at him as though he had done something to physically harm her. She spoke with a forced innocent voice. “Why of course I can leave you alone, Siminus. I got you your own room after all, didn’t I? It was only by mere happenstance that a thirst overcame me after we heard you creeping past our door, so we decided to come and sample some of Mistress Hisha’s spirits. How was I to know you were down here making friends?”

  “Enough,” Farrus cut in, clearly not amused by them. “We haven’t any time for this.”

  “He’s right,” Givara added, shocking Sim, who expected her to defer to Enaya in these situations. She looked Farrus up and down like a butcher appraising a slab of meat. “Your name?”

  Farrus said nothing. With a blank face he challenged Givara’s imposing stare.

  “This is Farrus,” Sim answered for him. "He’s a guardsman from Dell. He’s a friend.”

  “Well then Master Farrus,” Enaya said, her tone becoming serious. Mistress Hisha arrived carrying two more pints of ale and two glasses of wine. They all watched her silently as she placed the glasses down, offered Enaya a quick bow of the head, and went back to the bar. “Master Farrus, why don’t you start by telling us who you are and what you know?”

  Farrus nodded and took a long sip from his fresh glass. “Sarimus told me to trust you Lady Relador. To honor him, I’ll give you my trust. You’ve obviously been a great help to the boy.” He looked at Sim for a moment as though considering something. “I’ll need your word that what I’m about to tell you stays here, at this table.”

  Enaya nodded. Her eyes were aflame with excitement. “You have it Master Farrus. I swear to you with my life and my wish to feel the creators embrace when my time passes on. I will keep your secrets.”

  Farrus nodded accepting Enaya’s oath. He inclined his head to Givara, raising his eyebrows.

  “You’ve no need to worry about Givara, Master Farrus,” Enaya said, speaking for Givara. “She is bound to my will. She cannot speak of this without my approval to do so.”

  Farrus looked unconvinced.

  “It’s alright Farrus,” Sim broke in. “Givara will never speak of this. She can’t.”

  Farrus looked back and forth between Sim and Enaya, considering their plea on Givara’s behalf. He looked Givara square in the eye and leaned forward, meeting her steely glare with an iron stare of his own. “If I’m going to spill some secrets tonight, I want yours in return.”

  Givara looked emotionlessly at Enaya. Sim wondered again about their ability to communicate without speaking.

  “I can’t allow that, Master Farrus. Givara’s secrets are her own and are of no consequence to you.” Enaya said it as if the issue was resolved.

  “I’ll decide what’s of consequence to me and what isn’t.” His eyes never left Givara’s face.

  Givara studied him for several moments. She took her right hand out from beneath her cloak and placed it on the table.

  “You and I will speak later, Master Farrus,” she said with an odd measure of respect and civility that Sim had never heard from her before.

  Farrus looked down at her hand and seemed to consider her gesture. Sim knew that she was showing him a great level of respect and trust to lower her guard before him. He wondered if Farrus would understand. For several moments Farrus read Givara’s face.

  “Alright, Givara,” he said at last, relaxing his posture. He leaned back in his chair. “We will speak later.”

  Givara nodded, the slightest hint of a smile pushing at the corners of her thin lips.

  “First I need to know something.” Farrus eyed them each in turn. “Have any of you ever heard of the stain of Orissa?”

  Enaya immediately looked to Givara who returned her gaze with an assuring nod.

  “I have, Master Farrus,” Givara answered levelly. “But, perhaps you’d like to explain it to the boy and Lady Relador.”

  Farrus nodded. “Most people think there is only one God, our Creator. The truth is that she is but one of many. No-one actually knows how many Gods there are. You see…the Gods live in another realm of existence, a world probably not too much different from ours. But I’m getting away from the point of this. The existence of higher beings is for scholars to debate.

  "Our God is good. Think of her as the light. Some Gods are evil. Think of them as the dark. They argue and bicker just like humans, constantly jealous of one another. That’s what Orissa is -- a jealous, evil God. To some it’s just a legend, but then again most legends are grounded in some truth.

  “When the Creator set out to make our world, she wanted to make a world in her own image, a world of beauty, of light, of good. One day as she worked on our world, Orissa came to offer her some assistance, but the Creator declined. Orissa became upset. She looked down from the heavens at the beautiful world our Creator was nearly finished making, and she became envious. She waited until the Creator took a break, and secretly put her own mark on our world, hiding it in hopes that our God would never find it. The Creator returned and finished her work, then sat back to watch it evolve.

  “But something was wrong. The beings she created started off living in harmony, but slowly over time they began to evolve and demonstrate behavior that went against her designs. Men began to covet power. They went to war with each other over their envy and greed. Eventually a great battle took place, remembered even to this day in a children’s tale called “The Battle of Three Queens”. The Creator had seen enough. She entered our realm to intervene before the beings of this world destroyed themselves. At first she believed that by re
moving the three warring queens order would be restored to her creation. But, in coming into our world, even for only a short time, she felt the presence of the dark god Orissa. She realized that it was not a flaw in her design, but a stain of darkness hanging like a veil across the world. The souls of her creations, clean and pure in their design, could not come into being without incurring the mark of Orissa’s stain.

  "The Creator tore the world apart in her search for Orissa’s mark, but the dark god had hidden her taint well. What had been one vast beautiful continent became three separate land masses with hundreds of small islands in between. Having spent too much time in our world, exposed to the stain, the Creator had to return to her realm to spend eternity watching her failure from the heavens.

  "The stain marks our world still. Every soul born since the beginning of time has come into life with a mark of darkness. Now this doesn’t mean that everyone is inherently evil, but rather that the capacity for darkness is inherent in all of us. The Creator can still heal our world, but to do this she needs just one person to be born without the stain; one pure soul, as we were all meant have. If someone can be born with a clean soul, the Creator can attach herself to that person and resist the stain while she searches for the source and a way to cure it.” Sim and Enaya had listened with complete attention, hanging on every word he had spoken. To Sim it sounded like a fairy tale, something his mother might have told him at bedtime. In fact as Farrus told his account of Orissa’s stain, Sim thought he could remember hearing something similar.

  “A fine tale, Master Farrus,” Enaya said breathlessly. “But where does that leave us?”

  Farrus gave her a hard look. “Right now, I’m afraid it doesn’t leave us with much.”

  “Why was Bella Kelmor in Vistrello?” Givara suddenly asked, causing Farrus to show a glimmer of surprise. He smiled at Givara approvingly. Enaya appeared impressed as well.