He gave me a wan smile. “You were never any threat to me. I am immune to plague, and cold, and fire, for that matter. In fact, I think there’s hardly anything that can kill me at all. It wasn’t out of kindness or self-sacrifice I saved you. I saved you because I hoped you could save me. And, in a way, you did.”
I didn’t want to talk anymore suddenly. I wanted to drink tea or play a game or do anything that didn’t feel like saying goodbye.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a heavy pause. “I never meant to deliver you into the hands of the Council. But the curse of being mine is that you are also theirs. I should have foreseen that.”
“I won’t serve them,” I said thickly.
“You will,” he replied. “Because if it isn’t you, it will be someone else, and I need it to be you because you are the only person I trust.”
This confused me. A cold draft from the door brushed me and I shuddered.
“Come here,” he said as coaxingly as he might have in those early days when I was as wary as a half-starved animal. With that same caution, I moved toward him into the fire’s warmth. He shed my cloak, which was too long for him, and placed it back around my shoulders. It was surprisingly warm.
“Noch,” he said quietly now that we stood face to face. “When I die—”
“What?” I interrupted him. “You’re barely thirty!”
He raised an impatient hand to silence me. “I didn’t say it was going to be tomorrow. But I want to say this now just in case.”
“Who says I’m going to outlive you?” I demanded. “I’m much more likely to fall in the lake or choke on a walnut—”
“Noch, listen to me,” he said sharply, and I fell silent. “When I die, another will be chosen to take my place. It will be a child—the age you were when I took you in, or younger. The child will know nothing of the power they have been granted and they will be frightened. I need you to be the one who finds them. I need you to care for them, shield them from the Council, and make sure they don’t grow up in a big tent full of lovely things with only the gods for company. I need you to make sure they grow up human. I can’t tell you how easy it is, with power like this and no one who loves you, to become something else.”
“You’re human,” I told him firmly.
He smiled, eyes glowing liquid amber in the firelight. “Because of you. And that’s why I need you to do this for me.”
I melted; I couldn’t help it. “I would do anything for you.”
“Thank you, Noch.” He dropped his gaze and suddenly looked tired. “And I will return to the Council. I’ll give you freedom for as long as I can. But when they call you, you must answer.” With that, he moved as if to leave, but I caught him quickly by the shoulders.
“Don’t go tonight. You offered me tea. I fear I’ll catch cold if I don’t have some.”
He awarded me a shaky laugh. “Of course. It’s the least I can do.”
We drank our tea by the fire as we would on any other night and talked no more of dark things. But when he retired to bed, I sat awake for hours with a cold stone of dread in my stomach. Unconsciously, I glanced again and again at his motionless form as if to make sure he was still there. And when I finally nodded off, I dreamed that something monstrous lurked outside our door, sometimes in the form of Councilor Glenn, sometimes in that of a pale foreigner, and sometimes in no form at all. Whatever it was, it sought only one thing—to take away Shae and leave me alone in the dark.
Nothing ever felt quite the same after that. Shae returned to the Council and the clan went about their business as usual. But I could not shake the sense of foreboding that seemed to hang over it all. When the snow melted, more Southerners came. They came in droves rather than family groups now—vast caravans that spanned the horizon. Occasionally, they stopped to speak with us, eat our food, and drink our wine, but mostly they passed us by. They were searching for someplace to call their own; Girah, who acted as translator for us, explained. We hardly understood this, having never laid claim to the land beneath our feet.
The small family of foreigners stayed with us, and we made no attempt to discourage them. They served a purpose for us whether they knew it or not. They showed the other newcomers that we were not afraid of them, and that they need not fear us. Yet they did fear us; the seven of them stayed huddled in their tent and watched us from a distance with their round, colorless eyes. They were dependent upon our kindness, and in that sense, they were our prisoners. I felt strangely sickened to see their thin forms skulking about the camp. They were like dark omens.
A settlement grew to the north of us—it almost seemed to spring up overnight. It was closer than any clan would have settled to another, but these newcomers knew nothing of our etiquette. Our hunting grounds would overlap, and the more they expanded, the more they would drain our resources. It was this that shattered the fragile peace between Shae and the Council at last. Shae proposed that we move. It was not uncommon for clans to uproot and wander; many never set down roots at all. But the Council, set in their ways, would not hear of it. They suggested instead we discourage our neighbors from lingering in their chosen place. A drought ought to do it, but if they would not budge, then perhaps a storm or a wildfire. Shae refused, saying that he would give them no more reason to name him “Devil.”
I learned this not from Shae, but from the Council themselves. Because, as he had predicted, they soon turned to me on account of his rebellion. I became what I had sworn I would not be: mediator between magus and Council, spy in my own home. The willingness of my subject made it no less strange. I made no secret of my distaste for the role but showed no disloyalty to the Council. I did what Shae needed of me, and I would not change it even now. In fact, it was my honor to take at least some of the lifelong burden from his shoulders.
There is no telling which of our many visitors first brought the blight. It made itself known slowly: a cough here and there, a child running a fever. Thus, it crept quietly from tent to tent, afflicting family after family, and by the time we took notice, there was nothing to be done. Plague had us by the throat again. This was a new sort of sickness. It attacked the lungs, causing one to cough and gasp until they spat out blood. I knew this by Shae’s word only; he would not allow me to leave the tent.
From our doorway, I could see the greasy gray smoke trail that issued from the funeral pyre day and night. Our part of the camp had not been stricken, but it would be. Helpless and useless, all I could do was wait. Shae was away most of the time, helping where he could or conferring with the Council—the crisis had incited a cease-fire between them. Trapped at home, I was not privy to these meetings, and he told me nothing of them. He hardly spoke at all, nor ate, nor slept. But then, neither did I.
I found myself sitting by the fire, half-awake, half-dreaming, for hours on end. Sometimes, I fantasized that I saw things in the flames or imagined for an instant that there was someone near me when I was in fact alone. A few times, I came to myself suddenly with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, as if I had slipped briefly into another world and promptly forgotten it upon my return. Always, it seemed there was something on the edge of my consciousness, some nagging and persistent force just beyond my realm of perception. Still, I wonder about this; I have never felt anything quite like it since. Perhaps it was simply that worry and sleeplessness had stretched my mind to the breaking point. Or perhaps it was that the veil of death lay so heavily over the camp, the line between this world and the next had wavered and my thoughts had begun to seep through or vice versa: something from the beyond had reached me.
Whatever the case, I must have fallen asleep well and truly one day, for I dreamed the most vivid and memorable dream. I was lying with my head in a woman’s lap, and she was familiar to me though I could not name her—a mother, a sister, or an aunt perhaps. She had my curls, black, thick, and untamable, my copper-brown skin, and my almond-shaped dark eyes. She was murmuring, “Don’t be afraid
, little one. We will all go to the Afterworld together.” And I felt entirely safe.
The feeling lingered for a moment as I came awake, and I felt certain then that I was not alone but surrounded by the warmth of those who loved me. But as reality came creeping back, a cold sense of dread took hold of me and I sat bolt upright, convinced that something was wrong. The moment I stepped outside, I saw it: a wavering haze of heat in the distance that was sickeningly familiar. Gray smoke billowed against the blue sky, reaching upward and outward like ghostly fingers. A strange silence lay over the scene; where one would expect to hear shouts and cries, there was nothing, not a whisper. But I needed not see flames or hear screams to know the camp was burning.
Without thinking, I took off for the Elders’ Lodge. I saw no one on the short journey; all was still and quiet. Now that I thought of it, I had not seen Shae for what felt like days—I had lost track of time. It seemed as if I were the only person left alive in the world. But when I burst inside the lodge, there was Councilor Glenn, and I had never been gladder to see him. Only two other Council members were present, and the three were hunched over the fire with their heads bowed. The air was thick with the smell of sandalwood and sage and I could hardly see for the smoke.
“Fire,” I gasped, voice husky from lack of use. “There’s fire in the camp!”
They did not respond, and I wondered for a wild instant if they were asleep or in some sort of trance. But then, Councilor Glenn stirred and raised his head slightly.
“It is contained,” he said in a dry, dull voice. “It will not reach us here.”
“What?” My head whirled, and the strange sense came over me that I was still trapped within a dream.
“We are safe now,” the councilor went on quietly, as though speaking to himself. “The clan will carry on.”
“Shae,” I responded, no longer listening. “Where is he?”
Councilor Glenn shook his gray head and seemed very small and insubstantial suddenly—the dried-up husk of an old man. “I only wanted what was best. Why couldn’t he ever see that?”
I turned and left, knowing now that visiting the Elders’ Lodge had been a waste of precious time. I went straight to the lakeshore, where I had found him last time, and spotted his slim silhouette standing waist-deep in the water. The surface of the lake was as still as glass, and his fine, silk robes billowed out around him. His hair in the sunlight shone like ravens’ feathers. Without hesitation, I plunged into the water, scarcely feeling the cold, and waded toward him.
When my ripples reached him, he turned and smiled over his shoulder. “I thought you’d come if I waited here a bit.”
“How could you do it again?” I demanded, voice coming out raw and hoarse. “I thought you regretted what happened back then. I thought …” I broke off, words catching in my throat.
“Of course I don’t regret it,” he replied calmly, turning away to look out over the lake. “How could I possibly regret something that gave me you?”
And then, for the first time, I was angry with him. I was angrier than I had ever been, and it swelled in my chest, red hot and heartbreaking.
“You’re killing them!” I shouted at his turned back. “You’re killing them again, and you don’t even care! They’re your people—you’re supposed to protect them!”
A twitch went through his shoulders, but he did not look back at me. “I protect the clan. When the clan is threatened, I purge the threat. You’ve always known this. Why is it different now?”
“Because—” I floundered for words, but for some reason all I could think of was the woman in my dream who had held my head in her lap. “It’s terrible. It’s monstrous. Better we all die together than this.”
He looked at me at last and his eyes were wet. “I cannot allow the clan to perish. The magi must preserve the clans, for without the clans, the gods would be lost. They would wander, bodiless, mindless, and forgotten until the end of the earth. They are our masters and we are their keepers, and if that makes us monsters or devils, so be it. We are what we are. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Well, I didn’t ask for this either,” I cried. “I didn’t ask to be plucked from my family or raised by a magus or subjugated to the Council. I’m not cut out for any of this. I don’t have the heart for it.”
He bowed his head, and a long stream of hair fell forward to hide his face from view. “I know you don’t. But you will. You will do as you must, as I have done what I must. I forced this life upon you, and you can hate me for that. It’s a burden I’m willing to bear.”
My chest tightened and for an instant I felt that my heart would stop. “Don’t be stupid,” I choked. “I love you. I’ve always loved you—you never gave me a choice in the matter.”
He lifted his chin at this and gave me a weak smile. “Thank you. That means more than you know.”
I steeled myself against the warmth his smile always brought me and said, “Put out the fire, Shae. Please, for me, save the ones you still can.”
His smile vanished. “I can’t do that, Noch. It’s too late. The fire must run its course.”
“You have to try,” I insisted. “Please, even if you can only save one.”
He turned slowly to face the lake again, and I knew by his posture that it was hopeless. “I hope you can forgive me,” he said so quietly I hardly heard.
I left him there, standing in the lake. I forced myself not to look back as I slogged to shore, and I don’t know if he watched me go. I think probably not; he was looking ahead.
I ran, dripping and breathless, through the silent camp toward the blooming smoke cloud. At first, it seemed I would never reach it; it appeared farther, then closer, then farther again as though I were running in circles. But at last, the fire reared up suddenly to either side of me as if I had passed through an unseen barrier. My steps faltered as a wave of heat assaulted me and the air was stripped from my lungs. Coughing, eyes stinging, I stumbled forward while flames flicked out at me hungrily from the burning tents.
Desperately, I began to call out for anyone who might still be alive. I burned my hands pushing open door flaps to find only roaring flames on the other side. Some of the tents flaked to pieces at my touch, and others were smoldering skeletons already. I could see no human forms. Despair crept up on me all at once, and I stopped in my tracks, bringing my stinging hands to my face. I thought madly of crawling inside one of the blazing tents and dying the way I was meant to. It would be fitting, wouldn’t it? It would break Shae’s heart, and maybe he deserved that. But I had not the courage to face death alone. And even here, in the midst of such destruction, I could not wish harm on Shae.
Something happened then—I caught it in the corner of my eye. A tent blazed brighter than the others and, with a rush of hot air that nearly knocked me off-balance, it collapsed. I turned to stare at the heap of blackened remains that still sputtered weakly with flame. An explosion of some sort; perhaps a barrel of whiskey had caught alight. But even as I told myself this, my feet moved, carrying me toward the site.
As I came closer, I saw amid the burning debris a small, huddled form. Flames flickered in a perfect circle around it but ventured no closer than that. And beneath the charred, smoking rags that hung from its thin limbs, the figure appeared unharmed. It raised its head as I approached, and I looked upon the soft, genderless face of a child with matted black hair and enormous tawny eyes. They gazed at me with a calm, calculated expression unbefitting a ragged child squatting in the wreckage of its home. And I got the sudden sense that it was not only a child who looked at me and that whatever ancient essence appraised me from behind those golden eyes knew me very well.
Scarcely thinking, I extended a hand and said, “Come here.”
Something shifted in the child’s gaze; a question had been answered. They stood and stepped forward quickly, dirty bare foot plunging straight into the ring of flame. But before I cou
ld cry out in alarm, they were through and apparently unhurt. A grubby hand reached out and caught mine, closing firmly around my fingers.
“Who are you?” they inquired bluntly, gazing up at me with eyes like an owl’s.
“I’m Noch,” I replied, but they only continued to stare. A word rose unbidden to the front of my mind—a title the Council had offered me once that I had refused in disgust. “I’m your warden.”
The child tipped their head curiously. “Warden?”
“It means you are under my protection,” I explained.
They appeared satisfied at this; the trace of a smile even flitted across their face. “Noch,” they said with that same forward tone, “why are you crying?”
Startled, I brought my free hand to my face and found that it was indeed wet with tears. “It must be the smoke,” I said, doing my best to wipe them away. “Come on, now. Let’s go.”
“To the Afterworld?” the child asked, eyes threatening to swallow me whole.
“No,” I answered with a small, broken laugh. “Let’s go home.”
The Damned Voyage
written by
John Haas
illustrated by
ALLEN MORRIS
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Haas is a Canadian author living in Ottawa with his two wonderful sons. Since the early days of elementary school, John has been an avid storyteller, though mostly only told those stories to closest friends, family, and the occasional pet. Once the above-mentioned wonderful sons entered his life, the need to write kicked into high gear, fuelled by a desire to be something his boys could be proud of. In the past eight years or so he has had fifteen short stories published in various excellent publications, and seen his first novel, The Reluctant Barbarian, a humorous fantasy tale released by Renaissance Press. Since the sales were made to small presses that don’t pay professional rates, he was still eligible to enter the contest at the time. The sequel, The Wayward Spider, will be released in 2019. John’s goal remains to become a full-time writer (rich and famous would be nice too, but one step at a time). www.johnhaas.weebly.com
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35 Page 8
