Relics of War

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “The war has been over for many years, Garander. There are no sides now.”

  “But there were sides,” Garander insisted. “Which side were you on?”

  “The Northern Empire was destroyed. That side is gone.”

  “But you were a Northerner, weren’t you? That’s why you talk so strangely.”

  Tesk remained absolutely still for a moment before finally replying, “Yes. I was a Northerner.”

  Garander noticed that he said “was,” not “am.” Emboldened, he continued, “You weren’t just an ordinary Northerner, were you?”

  Tesk did not answer; he simply stared at Garander.

  He was not reaching for a weapon. He was not fleeing. He was not attacking. He was not grabbing Ishta as a hostage. He was simply standing there, silently staring at Garander.

  “You’re a shatra,” Garander said.

  “I did not realize you knew that word,” Tesk replied. “I had hoped you did not.”

  “Our father told us about shatra,” Garander said. “They dressed all in black, as you do, and carried talismans on their back, as you do, and moved strangely, as you do.”

  Tesk nodded. “I am shatra,” he said.

  “You aren’t human.”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Are you going to kill us because we know?” Ishta asked.

  Tesk blinked, once, then looked down at her. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

  “I don’t think people around here are going to tolerate a shatra near them,” Garander said.

  Tesk raised his head and met Garander’s gaze. “Are you going to tell them?” he asked.

  “I…I don’t know,” Garander said.

  “Why would you tell anyone?” Tesk asked calmly.

  “Because…because you’re dangerous. I think…I have a duty to warn my family, and my neighbors.”

  “I could be dangerous,” Tesk admitted. “Very dangerous. But I have lived here for twenty years and I have not harmed anyone. Why would you choose to change a situation that has been comfortable for everyone for so long?”

  “You’ve lived here for twenty years?” Ishta asked, startled.

  Tesk looked down at her again. “I have. Or in this vicinity, at any rate.”

  “Then why didn’t anyone see you until I found you?”

  “I did not choose to be seen. And I admit that I have often retreated into the hills to the east. I have not always lived this close.”

  “But why did you let Ishta see you, then?” Garander asked. “Why did you talk to her? Even if she saw you, you could have slipped away—aren’t you supposed to be able to run faster than a human?”

  “I could have fled,” Tesk agreed. “I did not want to. I am tired of living alone in the woods, with no human contact whatsoever. I knew a child could be no threat to me, and I hoped to develop contacts slowly. This is why I did not flee when you saw me—it was the next step.”

  “But you didn’t want us to tell our parents.”

  “It was too soon. Your parents undoubtedly remember the war too well to accept me without preparation.”

  For a moment none of them spoke. Then Tesk said, “I had hoped that your people might have forgotten what shatra are.”

  Ishta and Garander exchanged glances. “I hadn’t heard of them until Garander figured out that you were one,” Ishta said.

  “I’d only heard a few stories,” Garander said. “I didn’t know much about them until I asked Father.”

  “Has your father ever met shatra?”

  “No,” Garander replied. “He just heard stories. And he says that in the war, his company had orders for what to do if they ever did see one.”

  That seemed to catch Tesk’s interest; for a moment his expression was much more animated than usual. “What were those orders?” he asked.

  “They were to call in the nearest magician or dragon. Or both.”

  Tesk nodded. “Those were good orders.”

  “So you were evil?”

  “No,” Tesk said patiently. “I was dangerous. It is not the same thing.”

  “Everyone says that Northerners were evil!” Ishta said. “I thought maybe you weren’t, and that’s why you’re still here.”

  “And during the war, my people said that Ethsharites were all evil.”

  “Ethsharites aren’t evil!” Ishta protested. “Northerners were evil!”

  “Which side exterminated the other?” Tesk asked. “Is not such indiscriminate slaughter evil?”

  “It isn’t evil to kill bad people!” Ishta insisted.

  Tesk and Garander exchanged glances. Neither of them was quite so certain of Ishta’s argument.

  After a moment, Garander broke the silence. “If you’re a shatra, you’re part demon,” he pointed out. “Doesn’t that mean you’re evil?”

  Tesk took a moment to think before answering that one. “My people did not think demons were inherently evil,” he said. “And it is the human part of me that controls me, in any case. It is the human part you are speaking with. My demon portions give me magical speed and strength and sight and hearing, and other magic, but my thoughts are still human. I do not think I am evil. I have done nothing to harm anyone since the war ended.”

  “How do we know you’re telling the truth about that?”

  Tesk did that odd shoulder movement again. “How do we ever know whether someone is lying?”

  Garander had no good answer for that.

  “I have even done some good,” Tesk said. “There are mizagars in this area, and I have ensured they did not trouble anyone. I outrank them, so they obeyed when I told them to stay hidden and harm no one.”

  Garander blinked. He had no way to know whether the shatra’s claim had any truth to it or not. It could be true, for all Garander knew, or it could be a complete fabrication—but why would Tesk lie about that? It didn’t seem like a sensible lie, and Tesk, however strange he was, did seem sensible.

  “Why would you bother?” he asked.

  “Because I do not wish anyone to be harmed,” Tesk said. “I understand that the war is over, and my side lost; there is no point in inflicting any further damage. Mizagars do not understand this; they are little more than beasts. They will take orders from Northern officers, though, to the extent they understand those orders, and shatra are officers.”

  “How can they tell?” Ishta asked. “How would a mizagar know I’m not an officer?”

  Tesk smiled. “You do not speak Shaslan. You do not carry a talisman of rank. You do not know the magic words that force a mizagar to obey you.”

  “A talisman of rank?” Garander asked.

  “Yes,” Tesk said. He held out a hand, and something gleamed red and gold on his wrist. “This is one. It glows when I wish it to, and is bound to me—it will not glow for anyone else. I have others.”

  “Do you have a lot of talismans?” Ishta asked, staring at the one he displayed.

  Tesk smiled and withdrew his wrist. “Yes,” he said.

  “Do you know about the one I found? I mean, I told you about it, but do you know what it was for, or how it got there?”

  “That was mine,” Tesk said. “I discarded it. It relayed orders from my superiors—but my superiors are all long dead, so I had no further use for it. I thought it might be an entertaining toy for you, and left it where you might find it. I am sorry your baron took it for his own.”

  “He’s not my baron!” Ishta said.

  “Yes, he is,” Garander told her. “Whether you like it or not.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Now what?” Tesk asked.

  “What?” Garander said, startled.

  “Now that you know what I am, and you have heard my account of myself, what will you do about it?”

  Garander hesitated. He had not yet decided, and was unsure whether he would want to tell Tesk if he had. “What would you do if I told our father?” he asked. “Would you kill everybody?”

  Tesk sighed. “No. The war is over, I do not want to
harm anyone, and I am fast enough to escape any non-magical pursuit. If your father sought to destroy me, alone or with others, I would retreat into the hills where I would never be found. I would advise against this, however, because if I leave this area the mizagars may return. They obey my orders, but only for a limited time—two or three months, usually—and they move around, so that ones I have not instructed may wander into the area.”

  That was a reason to lie about the mizagars—to keep from being sent into lonely exile in the mountains. But that assumed he had not lied about wanting human company.

  “There, you see?” Ishta said. “He won’t hurt us!”

  “So he says,” Garander retorted. “We don’t know he’s telling us the truth.”

  “I think he is!”

  “I think he probably is, too,” Garander admitted, “but we can’t be sure.”

  “You must do as you think best,” Tesk said. “You should consider this, though—if I am not telling the truth, why am I here now, and not years ago? Perhaps when you were Ishta’s age?”

  “You could have been trapped somewhere, and only recently escaped,” Garander said. “Maybe a wizard captured you during the war, and the spell he used on you has only just broken.”

  Tesk nodded. “That could be. But if I meant you harm, why are you still alive?”

  “I don’t…”

  Then Tesk moved, so abruptly and so fast that Garander could hardly see him; he was little more than a dark blur, like a shadow among the trees, and then he was standing behind Garander’s right shoulder, a knife at the youth’s throat.

  Then he was gone again, only to reappear a few feet away, where he ostentatiously sheathed his knife, sliding it slowly into a scabbard on his belt, deliberately making an audible scraping sound.

  “You see why your father’s orders were to call in magicians or dragons?” he said.

  Garander swallowed, then nodded.

  “And I have not yet shown you what the sorcery I carry can do.”

  Garander was about to say that that wouldn’t be necessary when Ishta said excitedly, “Oh, can you show us?”

  That seemed to catch Tesk off-guard, but he recovered quickly and smiled. “A small demonstration, perhaps,” he said. He reached around and brought forward one of the black rods he carried on his back, then asked, “Would that stump make a satisfactory target?” He pointed.

  The “stump,” perhaps fifteen feet away, was the remains of a dead tree, seven or eight feet tall and about a foot and a half in diameter for most of its length. It was quite obviously hollow. Garander looked at Ishta.

  She met his gaze and nodded.

  “It’ll do,” Garander said.

  Tesk said, “Observe.” He ran his fingers along the rod in a quick pattern of short strokes, then pointed it at the dead tree.

  To say that the hollow stump burst into flame did not, Garander thought, convey what he saw; the stump exploded into flame with a loud “thump,” red and gold sparks showering in all directions. In an instant the entire thing was a column of fire.

  “We do not want to draw attention,” Tesk said. He waved the rod, and a sudden mist appeared; the flames quickly died away until only flickering red embers lingered on the greatly-reduced remains of the tree.

  “Hai, hai, hai!” Ishta shrieked, clapping her hand. “That was wonderful!”

  Garander nodded. “Impressive,” he said.

  “You do not want your father and his friends to seek me out,” Tesk said. “Either I would flee, which would make it all a waste of time and might allow mizagars to harass your people, or they might catch me, and I would defend myself.” He lifted the black rod. “Even if they win in the end, and kill me or capture me, some of them will be hurt or killed in the process. You see?”

  “I see,” Garander agreed. He looked at his sister. “I think I’m convinced,” he said. “What about you, Ishta?”

  “I was never going to tell anyone in the first place, Garander!”

  “Then we are decided,” Tesk said, “and I am pleased. I did not want to leave.”

  “May I try that black stick?” Ishta asked, pointing at the rod.

  Tesk smiled. “No,” he said. “It would not work for you. But I have other things I can show you.”

  Garander hesitated, then admitted, “I’d like to see them, too.”

  “Of course,” Tesk said. He reached around and tucked the black rod back into place. “Let us find somewhere more private, away from the smoke of the stump, and I will show you.”

  Together, the three of them retreated deeper into the woods.

  Chapter Seven

  Just a sixnight after Ishta and Garander visited Tesk, the first real snowfall arrived. It began in the night, and Garander woke up to a dimly-lit world covered in white, with big fat flakes swirling outside the window.

  At breakfast Grondar said, “The clouds are thinning. It should stop by noon, I’d say.”

  Garander nodded, and stuffed another chunk of bread in his mouth.

  “You’ll need to feed the livestock, of course, but anything else can wait until the snow stops.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “May I play outside?” Ishta asked.

  Their parents exchanged glances; Grondar turned up an empty palm. “Why not?” he said. “But stay close, in case the storm gets worse.”

  “You just said it was stopping!”

  “Am I a wizard, then, to foresee the future? It looks to me as if it’s stopping, but I could be wrong, so don’t go far.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Shella, we can work on the mending,” their mother said.

  The elder daughter looked up from her plate. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Don’t you want to play in the snow?” Garander asked her, teasing.

  Shella shuddered. “I have no desire to be cold and wet, thank you,” she replied.

  Accordingly, once the table was cleared Ishta and Garander bundled up in their boots and winter coats, while Shella and their mother pulled out the mending bag and settled by the hearth. Garander was still filling a bucket with table scraps for the hogs when Ishta dashed out into the snow. He glanced after her, then continued with the task at hand.

  It occurred to him that she might plan to pay Tesk a visit, to see what he thought of the snow; he hoped not. Still, it should be safe enough, since their parents were staying inside. Garander attended to his own business—seeing that the hogs and chickens were fed.

  He was done with his rounds and was putting the unused chicken feed back in the bin before closing up the barn when he heard the house door slam. He thought at first it must be Ishta going in, which was unexpected—he had expected her to stay out for hours, enjoying the weather. In fact, he was mildly surprised he had not yet been hit by a snowball. He looked up.

  A figure was standing at the door, and it was much too big to be Ishta. Startled, Garander peered through the snow, and realized that his father, Grondar, had just emerged, and was looking around the yard. He seemed to spot whatever he was after, and began trudging northward, past the barn.

  Puzzled, Garander was about to call out when he heard Grondar shout, “Ishta!”

  Garander turned and looked, noticing that the snow was coming down more thickly now, but he did not see his sister anywhere. “What’s going on?” he called.

  Grondar spotted him. “Oh, your mother wants Ishta for a fitting,” he called. “She’s cutting one of Shella’s old tunics down for Ishta, and wants to get the size right.”

  “Oh,” Garander answered.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I haven’t seen her,” Garander replied. “Do you want me to look?”

  His father waved him off. “No, I’ll do it. I’ve found her tracks here. You finish up your chores and go on in.”

  Garander hesitated. He was afraid Ishta’s tracks would lead into the woods, but he could not think of any reason he could use to insist on being the one to follow her.

  And then it
was too late; his father was marching northward through the snow, his eyes fixed on Ishta’s trail.

  Garander latched the barn door, trying to decide what to do. He didn’t know that Ishta had gone to see Tesk, but it seemed likely. Would her tracks still be clear enough to follow in the woods, where the ground was less even and the branches overhead caught some of the snow?

  Yes, he decided, they would. And their father might not realize what Tesk was until it was too late; if he thought the shatra was an ordinary man bent on debauching his daughter, he might do something that would force Tesk to defend himself.

  The possibility that Grondar would catch Tesk off-guard and kill or seriously injure him occurred to Garander, but he quickly dismissed it. Tesk was shatra, and Garander had seen a little of what he could do. It was their father, not Ishta’s playmate, who was in danger.

  Garander glanced at the house, but decided not to take the time to alert his mother or his other sister. What could he say that would be any use? Instead he turned and set out after his father.

  Grondar’s footsteps were plain in the fresh snow, and for that matter, Ishta’s were still visible as small oval depressions, even though she had been gone almost an hour and the snow was still falling steadily. Garander hurried.

  He could see his father perhaps a hundred feet ahead, beyond the barn, looping around the woodshed; that was the route Ishta used to slip into the woods unseen from the house. Muttering curses under his breath, Garander followed as quickly as he could. He considered shouting, asking Grondar to come back, but what could he say to convince him?

  “Ishta!” Grondar called, and Garander heard the anger in his voice. He guessed that his father had seen Ishta’s tracks going into the forest, where she was forbidden to venture. Garander struggled to pick up his pace.

  The snow was getting heavier; Grondar’s earlier prediction that it would end by noon seemed less and less likely every minute. Garander could scarcely see his father through the swirling white. The footsteps were still clear, though. Garander followed as swiftly as he could, north around the barn, past the woodshed, across the ditch, around the oak, and into the forest.

  It was late morning, but the heavy clouds blocked the sun and the snow obscured everything; Garander was not sure just where he was going. The snow clinging to every branch and sticking in patches to the trunks distorted the trees and made it hard to recognize landmarks.