by Jon Kiln
It wasn’t, though. That wasn’t good enough. They’d been friends, housemates. He thought she’d protected him, maybe even saved his life from the very men that had just taken Pul into his rooms. Worst of all, she’d made of fool of his abilities. This was not simply a matter of pride from Draken, one who knew himself to be touched by Rada, whose gifts came from Rada—it was sacrilege.
“This will be easier if we don’t talk,” she said, starting toward the distant staircase that would take them to the main floor of the arena. “Forget what they said about a tour. I don’t trust your emotions not to break if you had to talk to me the whole way there.”
Draken began to follow. “How, exactly, do they expect us to keep from drawing attention to ourselves? It’s not like I won’t be recognized, or like the news-callers won’t have plenty to say when they see me walking with a girl who isn’t Carella.”
“I won’t walk close. Follow me, but you can look like you are walking by yourself. If you wear a face that says you are busy, most people will leave you alone.”
“And you know all about wearing faces, don’t you?” The words came out even more poisonous than he’d intended them to.
But instead of being stung by them, at least on the outside, her pace and manner remained the same. “Indeed I do,” she said. “It is one of the great skills of my people, one of the most important aspects of following E’ghat.”
Chapter 18
When Draken awoke next in his sickbed in Merreline, the healing shaman was there. Whatever tea she had made him drink had cured his hangover as well as any lingering drunkenness. He guessed the time to be roughly two hours past noon. She was mixing something with her back to him.
“Something else I’ll need to swallow?” he said, attempting lightness, although his dream-memory of Sula’s betrayal seemed more present and real to him than the bed he lay in or the shaman in front of him.
“You did not like my tea?” she asked. “The flavor was too bitter?”
“No, it was fine.”
“This is not for you, anyway. I do have other patients, as I’m sure you realize.” She turned her head to smile at him. “You had a horrible dream.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“You also spoke in your sleep. Now I know who you really are.” She said this the same way she might have told him it looked like it would rain.
For a long time he didn’t say anything. She finished her mixture and left it to steep. Crossing the room to him, it occurred to Draken that this shaman was actually like Sula in some ways. Frail to look at, but possessing an inner strength that could be seen by any practiced eye. If not for her height and her light skin, he might have even wondered for a moment if it was Sula in disguise, her torture of him not yet complete.
Then he remembered his brother, and the mask he’d been wearing when he’d attacked the monastery, and he realized Sula’s tormenting was actually not finished. He would never see her again, but with Pul tainted by this ancient, false god, Sula might as well have left a thorn in Draken’s gut that could never be removed.
“You were very famous,” the shaman said, sitting beside him and automatically massaging the hand nearest her. Her expert touch, probing pressure-points in the skin, the valleys and mountains of his bones, soothed further aches he’d not even realized were lingering in him. He was astounded by her skill. Nowhere in Figa, he was sure, was there a shaman such as this. It was in line with everything he’d learned of Merreline in the short time he’d been there. Here were people unlike any others he’d known: faithful, powerful, simple.
“Don’t tell,” he pleaded. “I am known as Dimiter now.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said, with a reluctant shake of the head that suggested the notion was ridiculous, that perhaps Draken should have known better than to even suggest it. He supposed that was true. He sensed no malice in this woman. “But just because I know you are actually a great fighter does not mean I know everything about you. Why, for instance, you are here, and why you have said nothing of returning to your monastery. Drunkenness is frowned on, I’m sure, but they would not deny your repentance, would they?”
“No,” he said, trying to sit up a bit more to make conversation less awkward. He winced as he did so in anticipation of pain, but there was none.
“Then…?” she let the word trail off.
“Are you a healer of the mind as well?” he laughed. “Why should you want me to burden you with my troubles? Those that have nothing to do with my body?”
She got up, walked around to the other side of the bed, sat, and began massaging his opposite hand in the exact manner she had to the other. “I seek only to heal the body,” she said. “This is true. But I believe that the soul, and the mind, and the blessing of your god, whatever it may be; everyone has something, are connected, so I cannot heal your body fully and leave every other part of you untouched.”
Her philosophy seemed strange to him at first. If not strange, then strange from the mouth of a shaman, who usually seemed so one-track in their learning of the body’s ways. But he conceded that it may be true. Perhaps that was why she was so adept. And so, unwound as he was from the rest, the tea, the massage, and her healing humming, he trusted her knowledge, and spoke.
“I don’t belong there, and I never did.”
“Because you serve Rada?” she said. He raised an eyebrow, and she did something that could almost be called silent laughter. “Don’t look surprised. Even here in the ‘simple’ land of the north we hear about the arena in Figa. I may not look it, but I’ve been to my fair share of fights, both as a spectator and in the capacity of my profession. I’ve never been to the arena you hail from, but I still have ears, don’t I?”
“Did you ever see me?” he said, and she shook her head no. “To answer your question, yes,” he continued, “I don’t belong at the monastery because I serve Rada. It was foolish of me to try to become a monk.”
“Then why did you?”
But now he paused. “Just yesterday, the answer to that question was my most closely-guarded secret.”
“Are you sure you aren’t a court jester? You have me salivating for the next bit of your story. What happened to change that?”
“I was found,” he said simply. “That’s all. I became… I became a monk because I wanted to protect someone. Three someones, actually.”
“Your wife? Your children?”
It was like she had speared his heart with a stake of ice. Their perfect faces came into his mind with the force like a scene of unexpected gore. Carella. Dayda. Tayda. The only three people that meant anything to him now that Pul was forever beyond his grasp.
He clenched his eyes shut against the pain of remembering them, his ache to be with them again, but be worthy of being called a father and a husband. Through the agony he said, “I thought you were supposed to heal me.”
“I am,” she said. “And sometimes when you set a bone you must rebreak it first. Healing does not always feel good in the moment. True healing is what’s best for you over the course of days, weeks, months, and on.”
“All right,” he said, just wanting her to stop talking. “I get it.”
“I still think you should return. Rada or not. I can feel that you—”
But she couldn’t finish the thought. The town’s attention bell was ringing, and simultaneously the shouts began at each corner from the soldiers and the news-callers they had co-opted.
Their voices overlapped, as they made their set calls amid the clanging of the attention bell. The one closest to the shaman’s home sounded young, scarcely older than a child, and Draken wondered if they’d gotten even more people than just the news-callers to help spread this message. Young he was, but his voice was clear. He called, “The monastery has been attacked! It is on fire! All able-bodied adults able to do so are to report to that location immediately. Bring buckets. There is a moat on location. The monastery has been attacked! It is on fire!” and on and on.
Chapter
19
Draken was on his feet in an instant, more grateful than ever for the healing the shaman worked on him. He needed to be at his fighting fit. But-
“Where’s the sword?” he bellowed, feeling his frustration mounting like a swelling ocean tide. No, not frustration. Something worse, and far more dangerous. It was panic. Not a panic borne from the fear of battle, but what might be loosed in himself when the time came for action.
“You cannot,” she said. “I will forgive drinking. But you cannot lift a sword. I don’t care if you serve Rada or my father’s cow, you are a monk!”
“Woman!” he turned on her in a rage and instantly regretted the flash of real terror he saw in her face as she cringed away from him. What did it say about him that this unflappable woman, no doubt a discerner of character as much as ailment, appeared to have no doubt that he would kill or strike her if it served his ends? But he wouldn’t be stopped. “You must tell me where the sword is! I am already disgraced! I have already shed blood as a monk! I know who set this fire. I know their hearts. Nothing will stop them but death. There is no need for anyone else to be hurt while you worry about the state of my soul!”
He knew that wasn’t the whole of it. It wasn’t only his reverence for the gods in danger here. The people supported the monks. The monks acted on their behalf. In her mind, no good could possibly come from his disobedience. And yet, she relented.
“Under the bed. I’ve nowhere else to hide it.”
He wanted to believe she simply saw the logic of his words, but in the dark of his heart he worried she acted out of self-preservation. Was she in danger from him? He wondered. He couldn’t believe it was so, and yet…
There was no time for such soul-searching. He scooped his hand under the bed without looking and could have easily grabbed the blade instead of the hilt, rendering him useless in battle. Maybe that’s what he’d hoped would happen. But it didn’t, and his fingers wrapped around the unfamiliar handle with confidence. It was like slipping into a new tailored glove; stiff, but still well-fitted.
He did not even thank her, did not trust his voice to remain unbroken. He’d liked the shaman, and now, like everyone he’d ever liked, she was out of his life. Only once he was half-way down her street did he realize that he wore only a linen skirt. Anyone who looked at him would know he’d come from a shaman’s. But no matter. He stormed the street, drawing the gaze of the other men and women rushing to the outskirts of town, where the monastery waited over a mile away. Every soldier and news-caller shouting the message looked at him as well, but no one tried to stop him.
He was sure he would not be recognized as Draken, not even with a sword in his hand. He looked too much the part of town loon to be the mysteriously absent celebrity of Figa’s arena; youngest champion of all time, and the only one to never take a trainer; husband of Carella, grandest beauty and sharpest tongue in Drammata; father of Dayda and Fayda, twin girls as fair and as ethereal as the moon; killer of Vgar, legendary mountain fighter; son of the merchant Karillo, the dead keeper of the city’s oldest wines.
He did not know why his pedigree-resume flowed through his head in this moment. Only that he could not stop it. Not even when it reached the titles he’d never wanted. Drunken Draken, the champion of Champagne. Draken, the most foolish gambler the city had ever known. Draken the lush. Draken the unfaithful, the pursuer of childish pleasures.
Soon he was at the monastery. He’d moved as if in a dream, the world blurring past him like an unfinished painting. Dozens of people, civilians and soldier-police alike, threw buckets of water on the blaze, but one glance was enough for Draken to know what they couldn’t.
The blaze had been lit by a fire bomb. Probably several. There was nothing that could be done. The strange oils of the weapon would burn until they were gone. The water they splashed on it only made it spread, in defiance of all known laws of fire. He didn’t bother to tell anyone to stop, however. They were in a frenzy. Anything he said in that vein would be taken as proof of his confederacy with the arsons, especially when it was learned that he should rightfully have been inside.
The fire had been burning too long. His brother and his companions would be long-gone. All this destruction, this blasphemy… just to send Draken a message.
He approached one of the soldiers, a man directing new arrivals to the most thinly-covered spots. “Did any of the monks get out?”
“Not that we saw,” the man said. His eyes were so full of cold, sad acceptance. Draken knew he must have realized the nature of the fire, even though it was totally new to him, just by observing it.
Draken said, “It doesn’t look like the water is helping.”
“It isn’t. But I’m not going to be the one to tell them.” Draken nodded. The soldier said, “How could anyone do this? How could anyone do this?” And Draken wondered how the man would go on, his whole body seemed racked with the shock of the betrayal, an act so heinous it could not be comprehended.
Draken said, honestly, “I don’t know.”
He crossed the moat where an impromptu bridge of boards had been laid, and circled the ancient castle as far from it as he could get without stepping into the water. It was a huge building, and took several minutes of brisk walking to navigate one of its outer walls. There were few people working here to bring the fire down; most had begun at the entrance, where there was plenty of work to do.
“Help!” Draken heard, or thought he heard, amid the crackling, uneven roar of the blaze. “Help, if you like!” This last made Draken less sure he’d heard anything but his own imagination. What kind of distress call was that? “Anyone?”
But then Draken saw him, where the wall had been blown open. Probably a contact point for one of the bombs. The man was pinned beneath a stud. The far end of it was burning, about six feet from him, but as of yet he seemed unsinged.
“I, uh, I seem to be trapped,” the man said, smiling at Draken with a row of pleasantly crooked teeth. Draken didn’t recognize him, but judging from his robe, he was clearly a monk.
Draken climbed over the ruined wall, a feat that would have been impossible while the building was standing, and instantly was rebuffed by the heat. It was so intense, he felt he’d been sunburned simply standing before it, but still he made his way to the monk. He was scrawny, but still had a small pot belly. At the top of his thin neck sat a face that was not too far from handsome, if a bit on the goofy side. “Oh,” the monk said. “You might need to go get some other people. This thing’s pretty heavy.”
Draken gripped it with his wide hands. The muscles in his arms stood out like cords, but it moved without much argument. He threw the end of the stud into a pile that might once have been a desk, sending up a tizzy of sparks. The monk stepped out gratefully from the rut he’d been trapped in. After cracking his back with both hands, and wiping his sweaty palm on his soot-ruined robe, he extended a hand in greeting. “I’m Jace. I’m new here.” All around him the flamelight danced on his face, playing tricks both cruel and kind with his features.
Draken grabbed Jace’s hand so hard he almost broke the fragile bones there, and dragged him toward safety. When they’d gotten almost to the water’s edge, Jace said, “Let me just take this robe off. I don’t want to make a scene by being a monk. You’re practically naked, so whatever lie you’ve got for yourself should work fine for me too. I’m not picky.”
They ran to the makeshift bridge, but no one stopped them or, indeed, seemed much to notice them. The fire had entered into a new stage, freeing the volunteers of the distraction of throwing water, pushing them back to the other side of the moat with its intense heat. But even though there was now nothing for them to even attempt to do, the inferno was too incredible for them to peel their eyes away from. Draken and Jace slipped by without so much as a raised eyebrow despite their immodesty. Not even a soldier stopped them as they moved into a nearby grove of trees.
Chapter 20
“Now, as I was saying,” Jace tried once they were ensconced i
n the trees, but he was interrupted by a series of explosions. Shattering much of the monastery’s remains and sending the crowd scattering, only to reconvene a hundred yards further back.
“What was that?” Draken asked in disbelief.
“Coal. The dust, actually.” Jace answered matter-of-factly. “How else to you think they kept you warm in the winter? Huge coal furnace down there.” Jace made a vague outline with both hands, as if he were a children’s storyteller. “The size of an elephant.”
Draken had never seen it, but he had seen the black pipes snaking through the entire structure. He hadn’t been a monk for even one year, and had never endured a winter in the monastery. Now he never would.
“Coal explodes like that if it’s packed in enough and there’s a big enough heat source. And I’d call that big enough.” The man laughed. Draken looked at him in disbelief. He’d just been on the scene of a massacre. How many monks had lost their lives this today? More than had ever died at once before, Draken was sure, at least in recorded history. Jace himself had almost died. If Draken had not come around, if he hadn’t been strong enough… Jace would be nothing but a charred skeleton. The only thing about him would be his childish grin.
“Did you know,” Jace was saying, “there’s a coal fire in Whey that’s been burning for over ten years? Mines. Nobody knows how far down they go. I reckon this place,” he jabbed a thumb toward his former home, “will at least be smoldering for weeks. They had enough old coal in there to last another hundred years, packed down in the basement. I think some of it was leftover from the days it was a castle proper. I’m sorry, here I am jabbering on and I don’t even know your name. You know I’m Jace. Jace Darune. What can I address you as, o great hero?”
“Hero?” Draken said, worried Jace knew his profession even if he didn’t remember his name.
