by C S Marks
“Good. And remember…once we are out of this place, I’ll treat you the same way. If I see you, you’ll leave me alone. Otherwise, you’ll disappear. I know how to do that, too.”
Of course, I was bluffing. I had no idea of how to make anyone disappear, though I certainly have one now. But I know to this day that I could have killed him had he tried to thwart me. That’s what got my name called the next day.
***
They took me away with no fanfare at all—they didn’t even speak to me. I soon found myself in a stark, grey cell with stone walls, a straw mattress on the floor, a vessel of water, a basin for washing in, and a chamber-pot. What, am I in prison now? No…not a prison. From what I’ve heard of them, this window would be too big, and there are no bars on it. Besides…it’s way too clean here. The window was too high to see anything but sky, so I jumped, grabbed the stone sill, and tried to haul myself up for a look. I could hear what sounded like marching feet and the clash of wood and steel, but I had grown weaker in confinement and my arms gave out. I dropped down to the well-swept floor, just in time for the heavy wooden door to swing open.
A man loomed in the doorway, so large he almost filled it entirely. “Beltran, is it?” he said.
I tried to sound confident. “Yes sir. Beltran.”
“You have been accepted into the ranks of the hopeful—those who would defend the City. As a new recruit, your duty is to do what you’re told, when you’re told. You will not question orders or instructions, ever. If you prove worthy, you will be trained. If not, you will find employment in a much less prestigious vocation. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Good. We have been watching you. It would be a shame to see you mucking out pig-pens for the rest of your life, wouldn’t it?”
I nodded again.
“Can you read? No? Well, that’s a pity, but we’ll soon remedy it. You’ll just have to remember. You’ll hear a bell every morning, and someone will come to get you. You should be out of bed and fully dressed when they come.” He drew forth a paper-wrapped parcel from a satchel and handed it to me. “Put these on. Tonight you will be fed in your room, but starting tomorrow you’ll eat with the others. Get some sleep. You’ll have a full day of training ahead of you.”
He turned and swung the door shut before I could even ask his name.
***
My father had always taught me to think for myself, but he also taught me the value of keeping my head down. I knew better than to be defiant or stubborn, at least in the beginning. I settled into my training, having learned that the people who now had control of my life held the same indifference to human frailties as the rest of the citizens did. This is what happens when you throw people together who have almost nothing in common other than grief and loss. We had all withdrawn into little islands, isolating ourselves from pain. If we didn’t get to know our neighbors, we didn’t have to care about what happened to them.
The only person I had really befriended since my rescue was Asher, and I had not seen him since they called his name in the holding-yard. I wondered where they had taken him, hoping that maybe he would be training with me, but I would soon be disappointed. Asher and I were friends, but we were very different people. He was a lot smarter than I was. At the time, I imagined he had been selected for something other than bashing and hacking at people.
Orovar was rapidly regaining its former glory, if one could call it that. The King had ordered the gathering and assembly of survivors—after all, what is a King without subjects? And the primary goal seemed to be training the City’s military, which seemed odd to me at first. I had assumed that the people capable of organizing any sort of attack were dead, and the survivors had been brought here and sworn in as Citizens already. Eventually I would realize what the King was really afraid of.
I was sworn in as a Citizen on the first morning of training. I remember the oath well—I had to repeat it under every full moon for the next ten years. I swore to defend the King at all costs, to devote my mind and body to the betterment of Orovar, to always obey the orders of my superiors, and to never organize or participate in any act of rebellion, on pain of death. Later, I would swear a different sort of oath.
My schedule was highly regimented and controlled—eating, sleeping, training, studying. I learned to read and write, though I had no love for it at the time, and to fight with various weapons as well as hand-to-hand.
Regrettably, I had made an enemy in the holding-yard—the boy I had threatened to strangle. His name was Jamar, and I suppose I can’t blame him for hating me. He had joined in with a gang of larger, more aggressive young men, several of whom bore the scars of Sickness. I knew how dangerous they were, and I tried to avoid them.
Except for my own sister, I held little regard for people. What they had done to my father and little brother had taught me that. I have no doubt that some had even turned on their own relations. Stupid, fearful people...they didn’t matter to me. They could be used and then abandoned—I certainly didn’t need to care about them or their fates. I had realized something else, too...that I was afraid of them. Of what they would do. The only way to quell those fears was to become powerful and fearsome myself. Then they would leave me alone.
This attitude made me quite a force in the training-yard, at least among eleven and twelve-year-olds. I swung my ironwood practice weapons—weighted exactly the same as their steel counterparts—with fervor. Accuracy and precision came later. I imagined my opponents were among the terrible mob that had tortured and killed my brother. Soon no one in my training group wanted to spar with me. I had no friends, and I didn’t care.
When I went to lessons, I asked about my sister. They told me she was doing well, but that I would not be allowed to visit her until I had completed my training. “Your sister is in training, too,” they said. “She is learning what she needs to learn, as you must.” Then it was all reading, writing, and numbers…the only area where I could excel.
When I suffered my first real humiliation, it was outside the training arena. I had received a message from my Captain asking that I meet him in the courtyard behind the kitchens, where the rubbish was held until it could be hauled away. I had thought it strange, but I had sworn never to disobey an order.
At first, I saw no one waiting there. When Jamar and his cronies, three of whom had at least five years and forty pounds on me, emerged from the shadows, I knew I was unlikely to leave unscathed. They carried no weapons—raising a real weapon against a fellow cadet carried the most severe punishment—but their hands looked quite lethal enough for me. Jamar held a loose length of cord in one hand. “I believe you might have lost this,” he said, his eyes full of hate. “I’ll just give it back to you, now, shall I?”
I panicked, looking around for any escape, outnumbered five to one. I had to better the odds, or I was dead.
“A shame you can’t face me alone, Jamar,” I said. “You’re no match for me on your own, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you bring along four bigger, stronger, better fighters to aid you. You’re the biggest coward in the world!”
This appeal to his pride failed, as he had none. He and his gang leaped forward, intending to grab me. How I managed to evade them I don’t know, but I wrenched my arm so badly that I couldn’t hold my sword up for nearly a month. I ended up in the only place I knew they wouldn’t follow—the compost pit. At the time, the prevailing substance was fish heads. We ate a lot of fish in Orovar.
They laughed and left me to wallow, gasping and retching, as Jamar threw the cord at me. I later put it to good use, and I have it still. I learned a few things on that day. One was never to go against my own inner senses—if something didn’t seem right, I wouldn’t do it. The other was that stink washes off.
Unfortunately, this one didn’t wash off quite soon enough, and I soon acquired the nickname “Fish-bait,” which stuck with me until I left the training academy. But the harder I trained, the more I practiced, the more formidable I became. S
oon the name “Fish-bait” was spoken with respect. I could live with that.
It wasn’t an easy life. I asked after my sister each day at lessons, was told that she was well and that I could not see her until I had finished my training. Every day, the same question and answer. I did it because I loathed my language teacher and I thought it would annoy him, but also because I believed that as long as I asked each day, Salina would be all right. I didn’t know where she was, or what they were doing to her. I saw plenty of young girls while I was abroad in the City, but never caught even a glimpse of her.
I was barely sixteen years old when I finally passed my first test, earning my acceptance into the lower ranks of the city guard. I had been preparing for months, running, climbing, lifting, pushing my lean, wiry body to the limit. On one occasion, one of the older recruits called me a “stripling.” I smiled, and then kicked him hard enough to drop him to the sand. No one called me names after that.
After I received the news that I had passed, I went to my Captain and asked to see my sister.
“You have completed your first stage of training,” he said. “You may visit your sister.”
I’ll never forget the relief that washed over me when I saw Salina—Silva, as she was now known. She looked healthy, having grown quite a lot in the four years we had been apart. She was overjoyed to see me…almost too much so. Something nagged at the back of my mind when I looked at her hands. They were roughened and red, the nails ragged. She has been biting them, tearing at them hard enough to make her fingers bleed.
“What happened to your hands?” I asked.
She quickly thrust them beneath the folds of her garment. “Nothing…they’re just rough from the work I do.”
“And what work is that?” I asked, unsure of how a ten-year-old girl could work hard enough to make her fingers bleed.
“Oh, you know…I do a lot of washing and cleaning. We girls aren’t taught the same lessons as you. Anyway, the Headmistress has told me I should take better care of my hands. She says I’ll never get a husband otherwise.”
“Well, at least all the men will know what a hard worker you are,” I said, trying to cheer her, but the dread in her eyes made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I shivered, trying to banish the chill that had come over me. Salina threw her arms around me, shaking. “Let’s go home, Glennroy. We need to go back home…before this place changes us too much,” she said. “There’s no Sickness anymore.”
I didn’t know what to do. “We can’t go home,” I whispered. “Be quiet, now…they won’t like it if they hear you say such things. Haven’t you taken the Oath? I know I did. We can’t leave.”
She drew back, her wise, round eyes fixed on mine. “I asked for you every day.”
I felt a lump rising in my throat. “I asked about you, too. But they wouldn’t let us be together until I completed my training.” Even as I said the words, I knew how lame they sounded. I should have found a way. I had promised my father I would protect her. The thought made me cross. “Anyway, this is our home now, and we should make the most of it. Just try to be content, will you? One day you’ll marry a fine man, and have a house full of children. You’ll be happy…I just know it.”
She cast her gaze down to her feet. “I still have the dreams. You might hope for happiness, and you might have it, but not with hearth and home…not here. I don’t see that future for either of us.” Then she closed her eyes. “Maybe you shouldn’t come here anymore.”
I stared at her. “But why?”
“Because it will make us both sad.”
I gripped her arm. “I promised Father that I would look after you, and I intend to. I won’t hear any argument from you.”
Her eyelashes, wet with tears, fluttered up at me. “I can look after myself. You have to let me do that, and follow your own path. Just try to keep your heart open a little bit. The world—bad people—will try to close it. Goodbye, Glennroy. I will love you always.”
When had she gotten so…old? I stood in shock as I realized she meant every word—she would not allow another visit from me. I couldn’t think of anything to say, but could only watch as she composed herself, clasped my hands once more with her ragged fingers, and then turned to leave me alone in the room.
***
My training was far from over.
At first, I was treated the same as any other new recruit. I was happy to be free of daily classroom lessons, and eventually I settled into my new routine with hardly a thought given to Salina and her ominous words. We were given assignments every day—sometimes we were sent to dig a well or repair a wall, but mostly we just sparred with one another and played at mock battles. Unfortunately, Jamar and two of his companions had been assigned to my Company. They tried to make things difficult for me whenever the Captain wasn’t looking. That was when I discovered my particular talent for disappearing.
Sometimes, if a recruit received a special assignment, it was given to him on a slip of paper. It might mean anything—polish the officers’ boots, exercise the horses, take blades to the smithy to be sharpened—and I received my share of tasks.
I stayed in this routine for four more years, during which time I refined some of my skills, worked hard at menial tasks, and tried not to run afoul of Jamar and his associates. For the most part I was content, though there was something missing. Now that I was an official recruit, they had given my father’s axe back to me. I remember looking into its polished surface, observing the lean, scruffy-bearded face of the young man staring back at me. Is there anything more? I asked myself. Will I ever achieve greatness? I don’t care about being happy…I want to be important enough that I won’t need to hide from people like Jamar. And…I want to make a difference, too. King Darius is called “The Just.” If I serve him, perhaps I can prevent the stupid, fearful people from doing harm to innocents like my father and brother.
I had never seen King Darius. From what I heard, few people ever had. But he and his Gleaners had rescued Salina and me, and that was enough to earn my loyalty.
One day I received my assignment as usual, but it was the first time I had ever seen the word “ministry” printed there. That meant my presence was required in front of one or more of the City’s ministers—the advisors who carried out the orders of the King.
The Ministry was quite a change from my austere quarters—hung with tapestries and set with water-fountains that sparkled in the sunlight filtering down through panels in the ceiling. I wondered how they worked—what made the water flow. I sat obediently in an elaborately carved chair, trying to imagine what they could possibly want with me.
Three ministers came into the room, along with four enormous, fierce-looking guards. Why would they need guards? Especially armed with great axes—they look more like executioners. All my nerve endings were tingling as I rose to my feet.
“Please sit down,” said one of the ministers. “You can relax…you’ve done nothing wrong as yet.” Two of the axe-carrying guards stood behind the chair on either side.
Well, now I can certainly relax.
I looked at the ministers, trying to imagine what would come next. The one in the center, a short, rather stocky man with penetrating grey eyes, spoke first. His voice was soothing, melodic—almost hypnotic.
Careful...
“I’m sure you wonder why we have called you here. It’s Beltran, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my lords. Beltran.”
“We have come to make you an offer, Beltran. You have an extraordinary amount of potential, and, to be honest, the King needs men like you. But I must warn you—we do not make this offer lightly. Once we have made it, you will only have two choices. One is to accept the honor your King would bestow. The other is to lose the King’s favor.”
He paused for a moment, allowing the impact of his words to sink in, as one of his companions stepped forward. “You may leave now with no penalty,” he said. “But if you stay, you either leave as a member of a very elite group, or with dis
honor.”
I thought I knew what he meant by that—they would carry me out feet first.
“Let’s be plain,” I said. “If I refuse, I will meet with the wrong end of an axe. Isn’t that what you really intend?” To their credit, they barely registered any surprise at the question.
“I see you have a good grasp of your situation,” said the first. “If you refuse the wishes of King Darius, you must be treated as an enemy to the Crown.”
“We will, of course, bury you with full honors,” said the third. “No one else will know of your dishonor.”
Ah. Now I feel ever so much better. What in the world have I gotten myself into?
“If you accept, you will be taken into a very select fraternity with a long and glorious tradition,” said the first.
“May I ask a question?” I said, shifting in my seat.
“You may ask,” said the second, “though we may not answer.”
“Which of my abilities, precisely, caused you to select me for this honor?”
They whispered briefly to one another. “We will not say until you decide whether to hear our offer,” said the first. “You may leave now if you’d like. However, we must ask you not to speak of this meeting if you do. If we hear otherwise, you will not live long, I assure you.”
They stood patiently for a moment or two as I considered. “We had thought you to be a decisive young man,” said the first. “Now shall we escort you back to your quarters, or will you stay and hear what we have to tell?”
I didn’t trust them to have anyone escort me back—at least not alive. “Is this...occupation...more interesting than my current one?” I asked. “Because, to be frank, there has been very little to interest me in my present one.”
“Oh, I can assure you, it is interesting,” said the second. “Perhaps the greatest challenge a man like you can face.”
