by Jon Kiln
“You saved me,” Jace reminded him.
“Oh. Right. I’m—” and he stopped. He realized there was no reason to hide his identity any longer. He threw his fake name away in his head. Good riddance. It wasn’t something he’d ever enjoyed hiding behind. “I’m Draken Wellstroma.”
He watched, but not a flicker of recognition shown in the monk’s eyes. The name meant nothing to him. Draken gauged Jace to be in maybe his early-to-mid thirties. Older than Draken by a stretch, anyway. Had he not been a monk, he might have even thought his lack of knowledge suspicious. Even people who didn’t follow the arena had been interested in Draken purely as a wunderkind.
“Well, Draken Wellstroma: thank you. Also, you are strong.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Hmm,” Jace said, turning to look at the monastery through a break in the trees. It was more smoke than fire now, or at least the black smoke billowing up like a pillar of charcoal blocked out so much of the fire’s light it appeared to be dying down.
“What is it?”
“It’s just, well, what now?” Jace seemed almost happy about the question, as if it amused him. “I can’t go back to the last monastery I came from. I didn’t get on very well there.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say a lot of people confuse being reverent about the gods with being boring. That’s not an error I’ve ever made. I have many faults, but that’s not one of them.”
“I see,” said Draken.
“No offense, but how could you? People who aren’t monks don’t ‘see’ what it’s like to be one. There are strong pressures there to act a certain way, be a certain way. I want to serve the four-five gods. No,” he shook his head, “let me rephrase that. I do serve the four-five gods. Their will is my first and last priority. But I think a lot of the nonsense that the monks, and the church for that matter, has got themselves wrapped up in has a lot less to do with worship than posturing. I’m not much for posturing. Or dogma.”
He put a hand on Draken’s shoulder, and his manner stiffened slightly, like he was rallying himself up for something. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Do you believe the will of the four-five gods is done in this world?”
This was an easy question for any believer. The idea that the gods have their way, after all is said and done, was one of the key tenants of the four-five faith.
Draken answered truthfully, or at least he hoped it was the truth. “Yes.”
“Of course you do,” Jace said. “And so do I. And so does everybody in Drammata, just about. So let me ask you this: why are we so worried?”
“Worried?”
“Oh don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. Even if you’re not a monk, you have to have noticed. Let’s take Her Sickness, for example. Have you ever lost anybody to Her Sickness?”
Draken nodded.
“Me too. You get to be a certain age, these days anyway, and it’s more likely than not that you know at least one person who, let’s say, succumbed to the disease. What do people say about it?”
“That the person went directly into the service of Dramm-Teskata, without any trial of the spirit after death.”
“And is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Draken had to answer. “Good.”
“Right. And yet, everybody’s always so worried about it. Not me. I never worry about Her Sickness. If somebody gets it, I just tell them ‘congratulations.’ Everybody says they have reverence for Dramm-Teskata’s sickness, but then look at them. Cowering in fear from anybody who gets it, ostracizing them, locking them away. Look at the officials. All these decrees about how to keep it from spreading. That doesn’t seem hypocritical to you?”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Draken admitted.
“Yours. Mine. Everybody’s. We all know that’s not the right way to act about it, yet we worry about dying, about catching it. I don’t know about you, but I want to serve Dramm-Teskata. I don’t want to wade through some spiritual trial first. But you know, I don’t worry about that either. I’m probably never going to get Her Sickness. I’ve been around dozens of people who had it. Maybe more. Never so much as a sniffle afterward. And that’s okay, because, and pay close attention now, what is it if I don’t get Her Sickness? What is it if I have to have the trial of my spirit?”
Draken only shrugged.
“It means that’s the will of the four-five gods, and isn’t that what we all want anyway? Isn’t that what we all worship?”
“Is that why you’re so jovial about the massacre behind you?” Draken asked seriously.
“Hey!” Jace protested. “Don’t think I’m happy about all those monks dying! I’m not totally cold-hearted! I know that someone did that, that someone attacked us, and I know that’s not righteousness. No, I don’t think that display of hatred was the will of the four-five gods, as such, but I also don’t think for a moment that the souls of those monks are going to be left high and dry. Dramm-Teskata probably knew about this a long time before it happened, and even if she didn’t, I think she’s a lot more powerful than the actions of a few guys in masks, even if their crime was of the vilest sort.”
“There are other monasteries,” Draken said, disgusted with this man’s flippant attitude toward Pul’s terrorism. “I’m sure they’ll take you.”
Jace looked into Draken’s eyes, deeply. “I’ve touched a nerve,” he said, not unkindly. “I want to know which. Did you have maybe a brother who was a monk here? Father? Uncle? Former teacher?”
Draken bit back harsh words and chose instead those which would shock the man into silence. “I was a monk here!” he almost shouted. “And it looks like you and I are the only two who survived.”
If Draken had been hoping to still the man’s tongue, he was disappointed. “Dimiter!” he shouted. “Everyone was wondering where you’d gone. You were all anybody was talking about the last two days. And that man in the mask, the one who first attacked you, he called you ‘Old Baby.’ Some of the monks thought he might mean a famous fighter in Figa, others thought that wasn’t possible. I didn’t know what to think. I’ve never been to an arena.”
Draken was even more agitated by this outpouring. He turned to walk away. He was ready to leave all of this behind him. He regretted telling Jace he’d been a monk as well, but it didn’t matter, he’d never have to see this man again. All he had to do was go to town, find a tavern, find a henhouse, a gambling hall, and soon he’d sink back into the muck from which he’d sprung those scant ten months ago, and he’d be, if not happy, at least numb.
“Where are you going?” Jace said, running after him. “Don’t you see how we’ve been drawn together? This is exactly what I’m talking about. You say you want the will of the four-five gods, but you never look for it, not even when they shove their will right in front of your face.”
“I’m not a monk any longer,” Draken said, to shake the man. “After I took my many oaths, I drank, and—”
“Ha ha,” Jace said, “who hasn’t sipped an ale now and then? I don’t think—”
“And I’ve spilled blood.”
“I know,” Jace said. “When you killed those masked men… that was the day I joined this monastery. I’m the one who brought the message of their approach. I saw you dispatch of those men, and I thought it was quite compelling.”
Draken had to round on him at this admission. It was too far-fetched. “Compelling?” he said, furious at his fall from grace being referred to as a novelty for this man’s amusement. He’d had enough of being a spectacle to last him a lifetime.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve never been to an arena,” Jace said, taking an instinctive step backward in the face of Draken’s rage. “But I never thought watching people attack each other could be so engaging.”
“Well, then you also know I’m no longer a monk!”
“I don’t think it’s quite that easy,” the scrawny brother said. “You serve the four-five gods now, and you’ll keep serving them. If you are the
man some of the others thought you were, if it’s true that you served Rada before becoming a monk, you must know you can’t return now. You cannot serve Rada alone now. All of them have their claim on you, and that’s the way it should be. Call it blasphemy, but I think you were doing the will of the four-five gods just fine when you slaughtered those villains.”
“It is blasphemy!” Draken yelled, not sure exactly what it was that had his blood boiling—but identifying this man as the root of his frustrations—whatever they were.
“Says who?” Jace asked, and the simplicity of the question caught Draken off-guard.
He eventually answered, “The church.”
“Is the church the same thing as the four-five gods?”
Draken turned back toward town. From the corner of his eye he saw the plume of black smoke, so thick it seemed a solid thing, the filth of humankind drifting up to tarnish the heavens. “I don’t need to talk to you,” he said.
“It’s true then?” Jace asked. “You were an arena fighter before you were a monk, weren’t you? That’s right! You didn’t say you were Dimiter when I asked… you said—”
But Draken was getting away from him, walking at a resolute pace.
“Not many go from the circuits to the cloth,” Jace continued, catching up to Draken and matching him pace for pace. “But it has happened before. I think you’re a fascinating person, Draken Welstroma. That’s the name you gave, isn’t it? I thank the four-five gods that we’ve been brought together. A misfit monk and his companion, the only monk alive who once served Rada. Doesn’t it excite you to consider what purpose we’ve been brought together for? Think about it. When’s the last time something like this happened? This is like something out of the Canon.”
They came out of the grove. Some of the villagers were returning to town. There were animals to feed, children to tend, lunches to be cooked. But even more stayed at the monastery, watching it burn. No doubt they were trying to make room in their heads for such a monstrous act, the likes of which none of them could remember having heard before. At least, not outside the realms of legend and fairy-tale. Or the scriptures the church called Canon.
“That man,” Jace said, huffing for breath as his struggled to keep up with Draken, “in the mask. The one you didn’t kill. He’s the one who came back to burn the castle down once you’d gone. He had new companions with him, he must have, but I’d have thought they were the same ones as before if I hadn’t watched you slaughter them. They seemed identical, even in the way they rode their horses.”
Now there were some people within earshot, and Draken wished Jace would stop talking so loudly. But he said nothing, just kept making his way toward the tavern, trying to figure out a way to get a drink or two on the house since he had no money.
Jace said, “I think he knew you before you were a monk, the leader of those men. That’s the way he was talking, anyhow. I think he knew it would rile you if he called you Old Baby.”
“It wasn’t Old Baby,” Draken finally responded, not able to keep his words in. “It was Old Babe. Old Babe. Get it right if you insist on saying it.”
“I know,” he said. “I just wanted you to say something.” Jace grinned, and it took twenty years off his face, winding him back to childhood. He didn’t seem to mind the journey.
A woman looked at them as she passed, and Draken decided enough was enough. He wasn’t going to let this man blow his cover. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll talk. Just be quiet until we find a place to speak privately.”
Jace was already grinning, but his face tried to open more. Pressed to describe it, Draken would have had to have said the monk was beaming. “That’s what I like to hear!”
Chapter 21
And so, instead of drinking his problems away, Draken poured them into Jace Darune, the strangest monk he’d ever met. They did go to a tavern, but, Jace said, only because it was the safest place to talk where they could also stay warm. They’d found old onion sacks to wear as clothes, making them look totally impoverished, but in the dim lights of the tavern no one seemed to notice. Once he’d caught Jace up to the night Sula had revealed herself, both in parentage and in character, Jace cut him off.
“Sorry,” he said, “but this is such a thirsty story,” and waved over a bar maiden.
“What are you doing?” Draken asked, something like terror in his voice. But she was there before he could warn Jace that he was an alcoholic.
“Two of whatever you’ve got that isn’t too strong, eh?” He smiled at her like he was already drunk, and handed her five pewter coins. “Whatever this will get us, assuming there’s enough there for a tip.”
She smiled back, and soon they had two mugs of house ale in front of them. Draken relaxed. It was probably too watered-down to pose a serious threat.
“Now,” Jace said, taking a satisfying pull on his ale, not bothering to wipe away the foam mustache it left behind, “now I can listen. I have a feeling this is the exciting part, anyway.”
Draken didn’t much care for the implication that Jace hadn’t already been listening, considering he’d already been telling his tale for more than two hours, but he didn’t want to stare his ale-horse in the mouth.
“So,” he said, not drinking from his own mug until the foam had died down to a manageable level, “Sula took me to the sewers. I would never have thought the bear-masks had set up their base there, but it was actually not as rancid as you might think.”
“This is in Figa, right?”
Draken nodded.
“They must have gone to the west end of town. That’s where the water comes in from the Sheanna River, before it gets all mixed up with dinner’s leftovers.” Jace laughed at his own joke, staring Draken in the eye.
“Yes,” Draken said. “It was the west side of town. Aside from being damp, it hardly smelled at all. But I remember how nervous I was, descending that ladder…”
***
“Please watch your step,” Sula called down. “The rungs are very slippery.”
Draken made it to the bottom. His eyes hadn’t adjusted to the gloom, and so his world was very dark. He was still trying to hold his breath as much as possible, not yet realizing the place was free from all but the faintest putrid odor.
“What do you care?” he said. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
Sula had finished her descent. Now he could make out her outline, and he ached on Pul’s behalf, his fool of a brother, who had actually cared for this fiend.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she said, “unless you make me.”
“You or your buddies up there, what difference does it make?”
“This way,” she said, leading him along the wall of the tunnel. “Be careful on your right side. There’s nothing between the path and the water, and it’s very swift. Even if you fall by accident they will kill Pul. It is their way.”
After about thirty yards of movement made slow by the dark and the narrowness of the way, she spoke again, her accent thicker than normal. Draken guessed she was simply no longer masking it. “And I think it would make a big difference. If I killed you, your last moments would be ones of exquisite anguish. If my ‘buddies’ killed you, it would be relatively painless.”
“You mean you would torture me?” Draken knew they were enemies, but still this surprised him.
“Never,” she said crossly. “I mean anguish of the soul. I mean it would hurt you more because we are friends.”
He didn’t challenge the truth of the label she gave their relationship. He knew they weren’t friends, but he also knew what she meant. In another way, perhaps it was right to call it a spiritual way, they were still connected, and try as he might he could not feel complete hatred for her. She’d spent so many hours in his home. She’d been good company, a good listener and confidant. And she was right. It would hurt worse if she was the one to end his life rather than strangers.
Soon they came to a break in the wall which opened into a room. Draken’s eyes had slowly been a
djusting, but as of yet he hadn’t been able to pinpoint the source of the scant light that illuminated the ancient stone path which ran alongside the sewer. Now he saw an oil lamp, burned in a rotted-away segment of the ground. The ground had been leveled, either by design or simply by the treading of many feet over the course of months or years. A thick, inappropriately ornate rug had been spread over the dirt, making the room more livable.
And living here is exactly what the three bear-masks who waited for them seemed to have been doing. There were the remains of many meals neatly swept into a crumbling recession in one of the natural walls, large pails for laundering clothes, and even a number of chamber pots. The room didn’t smell any worse than the tunnel leading up to it, so Draken guessed they emptied them regularly.
There was something disturbing about the fastidiousness of these bear-masks. If they were normal bandits, highwaymen, or the like, Draken could have easily wrapped his head around them, though it would not have made them harmless. But these people were driven by something larger than greed. He remembered the bear-mask who’d leapt at him from behind a pillar, knowing he could not have had a chance against Draken’s legendary strength on his own. He may not have known Draken would kill him, but he had to have known it was a possibility. No, these were men with a purpose larger than themselves, and that made them harder to predict. It made them unknown.
No one spoke, not even Draken. He didn’t know what to say that would get him any closer to freedom, so he kept his mouth closed. Without ceremony—but not roughly, either—Sula presented Draken to the bear-masks to be chained to a metal stake driven into the earth. It seemed thin enough, but Draken was sure they’d have tested it against all possibility of breaking, even by someone as strong as he was.
And as soon as the shackles were on, one on his right foot, another on his right hand, Sula was gone, presumably to fetch Pul. With her away, Draken oddly felt more confident. He thought he’d try something.
