by JM Guillen
The Havens wasn’t home. Not anymore.
“I haven’t even got his medicine in him. He’ll be little use to you if he can’t talk because of his burned throat.”
The inquisitor gave the man an impatient glare.
“Fine. But hurry. We have to take action before the taint can spread.” He ducked out of the tent.
“Listen to me, little man.” Marten’s voice sounded hushed but urgent. “I understand not wanting to speak. I know this has been—” He paused, a wry twist to the corner of his mouth. “Well, I suppose I can’t know how this has been.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “But son, answer these men’s questions. I know you think it’s been bad, but it can get much worse. I promise.” He put his hand under my chin and made certain I met his eyes.
I nodded, holding his gaze as best as I could.
He sighed. “No, son. Tell me.”
“I understand.” My voice felt scratchy and rough. For a nonce, I worried that my true voice had burned away.
“Drink.” He nodded at the bowl.
I drank. It tasted like tears and bitter roux.
5
The entire time the inquisitors prowled the grounds, I never once saw one smile or offer comfort.
They questioned us in a small room off the back of the kitchens. That small, dark room didn’t usually see much use. They had pulled in a stool and hung two lanterns against one wall.
It had only one door.
During my interrogation, three inquisitors remained mostly silent. One worked his equipment while the hawk-faced man held the dog. The third kept leafing through a small, well-worn book. On the front of the book in gold leaf, I could just make out the word “Tenets.”
Only one questioned me.
The small man had hunter’s eyes that gleamed strangely. Like the others, he never smiled, but I could swear he enjoyed every moment. He seemed to relish his duty, as if terrifying children were his sole purpose in this world.
He was Sivath, the Inquisitor for the Warrens.
“How long have you been in Elsador’s Haven?” He had asked the question three times, his voice like gravel. As he did, one of the others held the crucible toward me. The keening whine had not changed in pitch while near me nor had the brilliant blue changed in color or shape. The mastiff sat calm.
This repetition confused me. Could the man not remember what I had said? “I’ve lived here five full summers. I was in my Lettering year when they brought me.”
“You’re in your Civics year then.” The third inquisitor looked up from his book. “You don’t look ten and two. More like nine.”
I shrugged. “I’m short.” I would wait another three months before I hit my growth and gained my height.
“Where were you when the fires were first seen?”
He asked dozens of questions, and I tried not to be afraid. The cantorès had assured me that I didn’t need to be.
Yet the dociere’s words echoed in my memories. More than his words, actually, the intensity on his face said he had been afraid for me.
I took a breath, struggling to remain calm. It was difficult. I knew that the dog could snap my neck if it so chose.
“Have you felt any nausea since the fires or had any boils or blotches on the skin?”
“I haven’t. I told you three times.”
“Hard to believe is all.” Sivath leaned in until I could smell garlic on his breath. “More than one hundred and thirty children burned yesterday.” His words came in short, piercing bursts. “Another forty may not survive. Everyone else seemed powerless against the fire. It was certainly some kind of sorcery.” His eyes narrowed. “We have questions for everyone who wasn’t affected.”
That was the second time one of them had claimed I wasn’t affected. Hot tears fought at the corners of my eyes. I had lost Tia! And Cyrl, and Jaque and Rio! Cantorè Cerna, who had taught me my ’rithmics, had gone mad and clawed out her own eyes! How could they—?
Sivath shuffled some papers and rubbed at his eyes tiredly. “In the days leading up to the fire, did you notice any of the portents?” He squinted at the papers and then pierced me with sharp eyes. “Food spoiling or milk souring? Wood rotting or iron rusting unusually?”
“I didn’t see any of the portents.” The man didn’t even need to read the list. Everyone learned the portents in their ’tiquities year. “I don’t think anyone did. If we had, we would have sent a runner.” I closed my eyes trying to control my tightened breath. “You and your dog would have been here days ago if we had seen any.”
“Hmm.” Sivath pursed his lips in disbelief. His eyes gleamed. “Where were you when you first became aware of the fire?”
This was the fourth time he had asked this question. I repeated my story about being out after dark with my friends.
He leaned forward, folding his hands.
One of the other men chuckled.
“It’s true that you heard the whispers then. What did they say? Could you make out any words?”
He questioned me mercilessly, his words like a whip. How had I escaped? How had I resisted the sweet whispers of the flame or remained sane as its punky-sweet smoke filled my lungs?
“Seriously, Thom. You must see that you are an enigma.” His eyes flicked at the man with the dog as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “In situations such as this, we do not like enigmas.”
I did not know what to say.
They finally left off questioning me after holding me for most of the morning. I walked away from their tent irritable and exhausted.
Still, I had been lucky. Many of the surviving orphans and cantorès were taken away to the wards, rambling or clawing at their own faces. Others had not even been that fortunate.
I had no idea of what the inquisitors did with those whom they deemed “tainted.”
None of us ever would.
6
Things were never normal again, no matter how I tried.
The next few days were filled with cleaning and repairs for everyone who survived. I personally spent two entire days scrubbing at cobblestones, trying to wash away the greasy soot that the fire had left. The smell seemed to seep into me: my clothes, my skin, and my hair.
“It probably won’t all come clean, Thom.” Cantorè Amblin’s voice remained soft. We all treated each other with tenderness, careful after the fire.
“I got the stones by the fountain clean.” My throat hurt to speak. I scrubbed harder and didn’t look up at him.
“I know you did, son.” His shadow fell over me as he stepped closer. “We may just get some new pavestones. The stoneworkers—”
“No.” My voice turned sharp. “I can get it clean. It will all be gone.” Maybe if the Havens came clean, I could relax. Maybe this could be my home again.
If only.
I remember his sigh. I remember how heavy it sounded.
“I know you can, son. I know you can.”
No amount of bathing helped get the stink from my skin. Even the fresh breeze did not dispel the reek the fire had left. Like the shadow of a living thing, that sickly-sweet, cloying smell grasped fervently to the buildings and pavestones.
It lurked where the eye could not see.
“Thom.”
I became certain that, when I wasn’t watching, the scent somehow gathered together into an emaciated, gaunt shade. It was horrifying. I could find it, lurking in the dark corners of my mind when I wasn’t paying attention. It whispered to me, just as the shades of my friends had.
“If you don’t come with them, you’ll be alone.”
The scent slept in my hair, clung to my clothes, and wafted along behind the few who had survived. It brought darkened dreams that would lie in wait even in the full day, stalking me. They were dreams that could kill. They could drink the fear right from my veins.
Or so I believed.
“Cyrl.” I whispered his name into the night. “Rio, Tia, and Jaque. Shaen, Markin, little Timmon.”
I often went over the names
in my head, a litany of the lost. I held Elsador’s medallion as I did, clenching it in a white-knuckled hand.
I repeated their names as if remembering them could somehow undo everything and bring them back.
This wasn’t my only ritual, of course. I knew that moonlight would keep the dreams at bay, and so I pushed my cot to the window. I took to only stacking my clothing in a terribly specific way. Of course, I sought fortunate number three wherever I could, it and its cousins such as six and nine. These numbers became my cornerstones.
I took to counting my steps or the number of bites I took or the pavestones between my small room and the blessed font of Elsador in the courtyard.
“Fifty and six.” I took another step, measuring my stride carefully. “Fifty and seven.” It was important that my rituals remained clandestine. If the other survivors realized what I was doing, it would be just as easy for the darkness to realize it as well.
For the fourth time I counted the steps to the chapel. I needed to make it a number that I could divide by three.
This was all I could do.
Eventually, my charms and simple faith seemed useless. The weight of my own fear dragged me down as surely as an anvil hanging from my neck. In the three days since the fire, none of my faith availed me, not even the charm of threes. I needed to get away from the Havens, away from the smell of burnt hair and punky-sweet rot.
The darkness, the smell, they watched. They watched with old, hungry eyes. If I didn’t get away, at least for a while, I knew the dreams would catch me. They would catch me, and I would never awaken.
Sometimes, I could still hear the whispering, like a malicious murmuring, so low I could never make out the words.
I just needed some time. Even if only a few hours, I needed time where I didn’t have to breathe the figments and whispers of my dead friends.
I needed to get out.
The moment I had the thought, it seemed as if I could breathe again. Of course. I would slip out, just as my friends and I had done. I could get away from the stench, away from the darkness that lurked behind every shadow.
I could be free.
Even if only for a time.
7
I had classes all afternoon and then duty in the mess, but I knew I could slip away once darkness came. The trek might even be easier now that the survivors had all been relocated to two buildings on the far dawnward side of the Havens.
Of course, the cantorès attempted to keep the flow of life smooth and simple despite the massive rescheduling of classes and activities.
Those of us who lived hadn’t really found a space for learning. We were hollow inside.
Agitating our loss, Sivath, the inquisitor that guarded the Warrens, stayed among us. The iron-eyed man sought to find any remnant of taint among us. The man even strolled among us during classes, never smiling.
Never being the slightest touch of kind.
“Today, we are going to discuss Aeldred the Drae.” The boys all mooned over Cantoré Eimle, one of the youngest of Elsador’s chosen, a pretty Riogiin woman. I liked her voice. All the cantoré had well trained voices, but hers was like sweet spring wine.
“He was a Reclamation hero,” offered Orwin, a boy still in his lettering year.
Eimle nodded.
“He was. Aeldred was the first of the ancient Du’anni to travel beyond their bounds into the Hollowlands. He was a masterful herbalist.”
Tulum, a quiet, dark skinned Kabian boy, nodded. “He writed…” The boy screwed up his face, trying to pronounce the book slowly, “Compendium Herbifica?”
“Wrote.” Eimle smiled at the boy. “You accent is much better, Tulum. And you got the name of the book right, even if your vernacular is still a touch off.”
The boy beamed. When he had first come to the Havens, he had scarcely spoken the vernacular at all. Tulum was ravenous when it came to herblore, however, thus he remembered the book.
Much of his hair had been burned away. He was lucky to be alive.
“Most of the Herbifica was transcribed, actually. But yes, it is believed that Aeldred is responsible for it. Remember, the Du’anni had no written language that we know of, so he couldn’t have written it.”
The mid-autumn day turned unusually warm. Only seven other students expressed interest in herbologies. We worked together in the lavender garden, getting the plants ready for the frost and repairing what damage we could, while Eimle walked around us. Her melodious voice played a counterpoint to the Simenion wind in the trees.
“What made Aeldred think that the Du’anni needed to quest beyond their bounds?” Patriec, a quiet girl in her ’tiquities year, furrowed her brow as she asked the question, her fingers buried in mulch and soil.
Eimle turned her warm smile on the girl. “That’s a good question. We don’t really know how long the Du’anni had been living in the Einholt. The stories say that Aeldred believed that he was led by radiant gods to convince the people. When he couldn’t, he simply left them, traveling into the hollows himself.”
“He would die outside a bounded city.” Orwin spoke the truth that we all believed. “Even if he only stayed in the hollows for a day. The taint would get him or the monsters would.”
Eimle smile turned indulgent. “Of course no one can survive in the Hollowlands, Orwin. This is probably just a story to show that Aeldred was a hero, considered greater than other men.”
“It’s dumb. Stories are supposed to be true.”
Eimle sat on a stone bench, close enough that I could smell her dark hair. It smelled like secrets, like twilight mist. I concentrated on the smell of the jasmine and mulch instead.
“Stories are true. That’s the important thing to understand.” Eimle searched for her next words. “We find stories that mean something to us, that have truths we understand, and then we try and live those truths.” She looked around at us. “The tale of Aeldred the Drae is a story about a man who believed in standing against evil. When no one would listen to him, he showed them what could be done by doing it himself.”
I paid particularly close attention to my hands, but my chest started to tighten.
“All of the Reclamation stories claim that Aeldred was an actual man, even though many of them show him doing impossible things.” She flashed that smile at Orwin, then at me. “The important thing is what these stories mean to us, here and now.”
“Aeldred never gave up.” Patriec smiled shyly as she said the words. “They said he could not be defeated.”
“You’re talking about the Du’vetica.” Eimle, still smiling at the girl, then began to recite, her voice melodious and soft:
The Drae bore the unflickering flame,
That the darkness, the fear,
Cackling in the heart of every man,
Could not stand against.
Thus, even in death,
He stood undefeated.
His victories written in spoken words.
The words of those too cowardly to follow.
“I hate the Du’vetica.” Orwin grumbled. “It doesn’t rhyme or make any sense. It claims that the Drae received wisdom from listening to the wind through the leaves.”
“It rhymes in the original Ghalan.” Eimle remained placid, ever smiling and patient. “Stories make the sense you give them, Orwin.” Eimle’s voice fell to a gentle but insistent tone. “It doesn’t matter how you listen to a story or how you tell it. What matters is how you live the truths that a story offers.”
She sighed as the second dusking bell rang. The children stood up, brushing dirt from homespun shirts and trousers. “We’ll talk more about it on Wending when we finish mulching the beds.”
Even as the other children stood, I remained crouched. I didn’t want them to see the tears in my eyes.
“The tale of Aeldred the Drae is a story about a man who believed in standing against evil. When no one would listen to him, he showed them what could be done by doing it himself.”
My breathing quickened, and my heart pound
ed. Something there made my breath come in pants. I couldn’t say what it was, but something in her words rang true for me, real in a way that a boy who was almost in his ’prenticing year couldn’t quite grasp.
The Simenon wind blew through the leaves over my head.
I listened, wishing that they had an answer for me.
8
Fifth bell, Dusking, now made a lonely time at the Havens. Usually, I looked forward to dinner. Now, however, instead of nigh two-hundred children eating, we had only thirty. The dinner hall seemed vast, forlorn, and empty. I found it impossible to sit within and not be reminded of those we had lost.
“Someone is here to see you.” It was Jefe, a nervous boy in his ’prenticing year.
I pushed my platter away; I wasn’t hungry anyway.
I didn’t even ask him who it was or what they wanted. Anything had to be better than sitting in a mostly empty dining hall, staring at all the ghost-filled seats.
I followed the older boy out of the mess and down Everts Hall. Jefe said something, but I didn’t actually pay him any attention. I had lost focus since Eimle’s class. My mind had been worrying over her words, like a mongrel with an old soup-bone.
“—the courtyard.” Jefe smiled at me, that same courteous smile we were all so careful to wear in those trying days.
I smiled back wanly. “Thank you, Jefe.” I went down the curving wooden steps into the twilit courtyard.
Even in autumn, flowers bloomed here. Mums, asters, and bellsong swayed in the Simenion wind, their various scents almost covering the faint smell of burning screams. I was trailing my fingers through the bellsong when I heard the man’s voice. I grinned weakly at the sound.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to return. I feel as if I am a nonce late.” The man’s accent was Esperan and thick. When I turned, I saw Alejandro leaning against one of the small fountains. His raven perched on his shoulder, black against the twilight sky.
Bandages crisscrossed his face and arm.
“Late. Late.” The bird repeated Alejandro’s word. The judicar grinned and scratched the bird on the back.
