The Fire and the Fog

by David Alloggia

  Gel remembered seeing a bard once, remembered how he had juggled and pulled flowers out of nowhere. He had thought that magic. Only later was he told that the flowers were hidden in the bard’s sleeves. There had to be an explanation for what the man had done.

  They walked in silence for a good five minutes, maybe more. Gel thought he’d start by asking the man where he’d come from, or maybe what he was doing in Oortain’s Copse. Or what had happened that night. Or maybe where the lute had come from. He was just about to open his mouth, to blurt out whichever question came first, when the man spoke.

  ‘So. Gel, right?’ Gel nodded.

  ‘Where were you headed?’

  Gel was going…he was going to…’I was going to find them’ he muttered. He still was going to.

  ‘Them? You mean whoever did, ah, that?’ Dan’r said, nodding his head back towards the village, now out of sight but for the light wisps of smoke that told that parts of the village still smoldered. Gel nodded again.

  ‘Well, I hate to say it ki…ah…Gel. You’re going the wrong direction.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Gel stopped walking, looked up at Dan’r. He hadn’t realized before how tall the man was.

  ‘I mean we’re going East. They went South. Probably towards Wraegn. If you’re trying to find them, you’re going the wrong way.’

  Gel felt himself getting angry again, and suspicious. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know a lot more than I let on, kid.’ The man said, and Gel felt himself prickle. Then the man turned, faced him.

  ‘Fine. Look Gel, I wasn’t there. Whatever happened, I wasn’t a part of it.’ Gel thought he sounded honest, again, but…

  ‘Then how do you know…’ the man held up a hand, interrupting Gel.

  ‘Like I said, Gel, I know more than I let on. I notice things. If you tell me what you know, then I can probably help you piece together what happened.’

  ‘What I know? What’s it matter. They went south. We can’t catch them now.’

  ‘Gel, trust me. I know where they went. I also think I know who they are. Just tell me what happened.’

  ‘What happened? They killed everyone, that’s what happened!’

  ‘They didn’t, Gel. There weren’t enough bodies. Most of your village was taken, not killed.’

  ‘Taken…they’re…they’re not dead?’

  ‘Not yet anyway. Now, Gel, what happened.’

  Gel stood for a minute. Then another. What the old man said almost made sense, he thought. He had seen his teacher dead, and…Del, the baker, and Daeny, and…and who else?

  He couldn’t remember. He had seen at least a dozen bodies, but…that was so few. And where were his parents, and…

  ‘If they’re not dead…’

  ‘Gel…’ the old man prodded him again; trying to get him to tell his story. But it hurt, didn’t it? Thinking about it?

  ‘I woke up,’ Gel started, ‘I woke up and everything outside was on fire. And all I could hear were screams and yells.

  ‘Before I could do anything, or move, there was a man in my room. He had a beard, and a sword, and he…’ Gel looked down at his hand, at the scabbed stumps where his last three fingers had been.

  ‘I…I woke up, and I found the lute, and I went to the tree, and…’

  ‘Right’ Dan’r said, looking away from Gel. ‘We go south. If we cut straight through the fields, we should hit the road to Wraegn late today, or tomorrow.’

  ‘Wait!’ Gel cried. ‘You said you knew who did it. Tell me!’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve figured out as we walk.’ Dan’r didn’t wait before stepping off the dirt road into the field to the right of the road. But he did look back at Gel, to see if he would follow.

  Did he have a choice? He hadn’t exactly been doing well on his own. And if the old man knew something…

  Thoughts of running away that had hovered in Gel’s mind since the man first grabbed him clashed with the promise that his parents were still alive, and the promise that the old man knew more about them.

  Gel stepped off the road to follow, and the two started off through the fields, heading south.

  ‘Where do you want me to start?’ Dan’r asked.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘…luck. I was wandering, aimlessly. I heard your music, followed it, found you. Found your town.’

  ‘No, why are you here. Following me; helping me?’

  ‘…because I need something from you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll tell you that later. Next question.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘I…I don’t know.’

  ‘You said you did!’

  ‘I know. I have an idea…but…look. I know a few things. First, it wasn’t bandits. If it were raiders out of Heyle, they would have killed a lot more people, and taken a lot more from the homes they looted. Second, whoever it was went south. A group of over two hundred. There can’t have been that many attackers, so…’

  Gel processed the words as Dan’r spoke them. Felt the little flame of excitement catch, felt it flicker to life, then explode.

  ‘They could still be alive!’ Gel yelled, excited. ‘We’ve got to catch up to them!’

  Gel set himself to run. He’d catch up to them, he’d find his parents, set them free, set the whole village free, and they could all go back.

  Dan’r’s hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

  ‘Hold up kid. Slow down.’

  ‘Let me go! I’ve got to find them!’

  Gel felt himself spun being around, felt Dan’r grab him by his other shoulder as well. The old man kneeled down, looking Gel in the eye.

  ‘It doesn’t work that way Gel. We have to go slow, conserve our energy. Otherwise you’ll collapse before you make it to the road. We’ve also got to plan. There could be a hundred soldiers there. We’re two, and one of us can’t fight.’

  Gel looked into Dan’r’s eyes, slowly, sadly, nodded that he understood.

  Dan’r let go of Gel’s shoulders, started walking southwards again, and after a second Gel began following him again.

  They walked in silence once more, walked through fields of chest-high grass. The sun shone down on them from its place in the pastel blue sky, the sounds of the world surrounded them; the rustle of wind, the constant hum of crickets; the awkward silence of two people who can’t quite figure out what to say next.

  Gel found himself wondering what he should say. Should he be angry with Dan’r, for not knowing who it was that attacked and destroyed his village? Or should he be happy, happy for the chance that his parents were still alive?

  He was mulling his feelings over in his head when Dan’r spoke again.

  ‘I’m not from here, you know.’ He said, continuing to walk. It seemed he didn’t believe in breaks of any kind.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Gel asked.

  ‘This land of yours. Dohm, you call it. I’m not from here. I come from a land called Alta, far, far to the East. I was on a ship, years and years ago. I was swept off the side, woke here.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not, but…where I come from, what you call magic is, not exactly common, but it exists. It’s how I made that lute.’

  ‘Show me. No, teach me.’

  ‘Look, Gel, it’s…not something that can be taught. What you call magic, I call Art. It’s…it’s paintings, sculpture, beautiful music, powerful words…’

  ‘I play music! Why can’t I make things?’

  ‘It doesn’t work that way. Music changes things, it doesn’t make them. Only Art can create things.’

  ‘So you can’t teach me?’

  ‘No, I can’t. Not Art anyway.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ***

  After the revelation that Dan’r couldn’t teach him magic, the boy had barely spoken. Dan’r could have told him more; could have told him so much more, but…

  not yet.

  The boy was young yet, and without a watcher…no, Dan
’r couldn’t risk him yet.

  Dan’r created a campfire, pulled food and drink, from paper in his cloak. He thought the boy might be impressed. And each time Dan’r made something, it seemed like he was, for a few moments at least. But then the realization that he couldn’t do the same sunk into him. Somehow Dan’r’s best efforts were just making the boy more depressed.

  ‘Why don’t you play something?’ Dan’r said, breaking the silence that had reigned throughout the pairs’ dinner, interrupted only by the crackling of the wood in the campfire as it slowly burnt itself down.

  Gel looked down at the lute at his side. He hadn’t picked it up again since tuning it upon receiving it, hours ago.

  ‘What do you want me to play?’ he asked, picking up the lute gently by the neck, cradling it on one leg.

  ‘Why not play something warm? Might be cold tonight. Might as well have something warm before sleep.’

  ‘Warm…I could do…’ Gel thought about it. He could do any of Heineths marches, but while warm, those were also stuffy; stiff. None of the ballads he knew fit warm either. They would either feel too soft, or too harsh. Warm, yes. Comfortable? No.

  ‘I can do warm’ Gel said to himself, and began to pick at the strings of his lute.

  He started slow, but it was a measured slowness. Each string picked smoothly, with intent clear. He allowed each note to sound fully before moving to the next. It was a slow start, a start sounding like what it felt to sit at night in front of a slowly waning fire, wishing the fire were larger.

  Then Gel began to play faster, more intricately. It was not a swift rush over the strings; that would feel more like the insistent warmth of a too-hot summer day, the sun beating down, every action fraught with exhaustion and the dream of a cool dark room.

  No, what Gel played was a smooth rush of notes, each phrase always ending higher, and always even; measured. It evoked, for him at least, lying in bed on a Sunday, covered in blankets. It suggested warm tea, and a chair pulled close to a fireplace.

  Gel noticed something strange as he played though. His right hand with its missing fingers…it felt better to play with than ever it had whole. In all his lessons, Gel had been taught to pick with all four fingers. Now that he was down to one full finger, one part finger, and a thumb…it felt more natural. It should have been harder to play; should have been almost impossible. But it was easier, better.

  Gel lost himself in his music. It had been days since he’d last played, and finally being able to play again was what he needed. As he played, Dan’r sketched something, but the intermittent scratchings of charcoal on parchment were lost in the sea of notes coming from the lute. Gel didn’t notice.

  When he finally finished, Dan’r looked up his drawing.

  ‘Go to sleep Gel. We start moving again early in the morning.’

  And Gel was comfortable enough that he simply nodded, put his lute beside him on the ground, lay down, and slept.

  Meeting

  I

  When she finally woke, Erris’ world was filled with confusion; with pain; and with fear.

  The confusion was temporary. Questions like where she was, what had happened; these questions were answered quickly as memories of the night before surfaced, as awareness of the world around her came slowly into focus. She was tied to Marmot, who was still walking, the old wagon still trailing noisily behind, the left wheel now squeaking every turn or so. What had happened? She had lost everything; her brothers, her sisters, her parents; everything. Her home too, likely. Lost as she was, she had no idea which direction it was.

  With the abatement of the confusion came the pain. Pain from the loss, keen and sharp, hurt more than her bleeding wrists or bruised thighs. Her wrists were rubbed red and raw from the ropes that bound them, her thighs turned blue from a night of riding. She may not remember the ride, but the pain was real enough. The two pains combined; the physical and the mental, were too much together. As soon as she started thinking of them, as soon as she realized they existed, she locked them away, forced herself to forget them, forced the tears she felt were coming to quiet, winced and blinked those already there away.

  And that’s when the fear materialized. Fear of being lost, alone, hungry, and practically naked. Fear of being young, and having nowhere to go, and no-one to turn to. The fear was even more paralytic than the pain. Through the confusion and the pain, Erris sat up; not tall, but at least up. Eyes closed, breathing deeply, she dealt with her confusion and locked away her pain. With the arrival of the fear though, she sobbed once, almost a surprised gasp, escaping the prison-like confines of her chest when she least expected.

  And then her back was bowed, her face buried in Marmot’s mane, and more sobs came. They were a tidal wave of choking coughs that forced themselves to the wall, crawled through, tumbling over each other, eventually petering out.

  The fear, and the tears that came with it, lasted a while, and all that while Marmot kept up his slow, plodding pace along the heavily-packed dirt road.

  Eventually, when Erris was finally able to straighten herself, to overcome the crippling fear that had overwhelmed her, she set to work.

  ‘I am alone’, she thought to herself as she stopped Marmot, wrapping her hands around the rope that bound her wrists together and pulling to bring the horse to a stop. ‘I am alone, but I am still alive. I’ll get out of this, get myself free, and then…and then…’. Panic hit Erris briefly, but she shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, throwing the panic into the dark depths of forgotten memory and locking it there with her pain and fear. ‘One thing at a time,’ she thought. Then she started biting at the ropes that bound her.

  Time is a problem, in that it travels much like a river. It moves always in the same direction, but it twists and turns, it moves swiftly in the deeps and crawls by the bank. As a river moves, so does time. It twists and turns, sometimes passing a person by before they can notice it, sometimes taking an eternity and going nowhere.

  Erris felt as if it took her hours to twist, bite, and gnaw at the tight ropes before she managed to slip her wrists free, but really her freedom cost her no more than a half hour. That half-hour of twisting, pinching, and biting pain was met by a few scant seconds of cool relief when she slipped her hands forcefully from their bonds, and then the sharp, throbbing pain of skin rubbed raw was back. How she wished that the pain had lasted seconds and the bliss of relief hours.

  But it hadn’t, and only time would bring further relief.

  Finally free of her bonds, Erris moved a leg up and over Marmot’s back, slid down till her feet touched the hot dirt road, let go of Marmot, and immediately collapsed. She wasn’t in pain, or maybe she was and had just chosen to ignore it, but her bruised legs wouldn’t hold her up. They were cramped, knotted, trembling.

  Determined, she rubbed at her legs till feeling returned, stood using the side of the wagon as support, and began to slowly take stock of her situation. There was a blanket in the back of the wagon, the one that her brother and sister had been under earlier. She grabbed it, wrapped it around herself, for modesty as much as warmth.

  She was lost, yes; she was alone, yes. But she did have some things going for her. She had Marmot and the wagon, even if the wagon was empty of all but the collection of books the old man had given her what seemed like such a long time ago. She also had the soldier’s sword, which still hung slung on Marmot’s pommel from…earlier.

  All this meant that her priorities would be water, food, and clothing, in that order. Which meant she needed to find a farm, a village, even a cottage, and…well, she could worry about how to get what she needed when she found somewhere to get them from. Maybe she could sell or trade the sword, or the wagon. The books and Marmot…She would never let them go.

  ‘Till then, she would continue in the same direction Marmot had been plodding for Ragn knew how many hours. If she went far enough, she was bound to find something, someone, eventually.

  It was largely stubbornness that helped her reach her decis
ion; her stubborn decision that she wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t collapse. That and the strict denial of any memory of what had happened to her, to her family. Erris wouldn’t think of it. Not now, hopefully not ever.

  With her course of action decided, Erris pulled herself onto the wagon seat, groaning slightly as she sat down, and pushed Marmot into a walk. The soldiers’ sword now hung at the left side of the wagon, easily reachable, and from the sack of books that she had on her right, she picked up the first title that came into reach.

  She might be travelling for a while. She might as well see how many of the books she could devour before she had to put them down, before she must return to reality and solve more pressing problems.

  ***

  The next morning, Gel woke to Dan’r, frying up sausages on a newly-stoked fire. It was early, the sun just beginning to slowly find its way over the hills on the horizon. It meandered its slow, lethargic way into the sky, and Gel thought he might like to someday play a song for the Sun as it rose. It would be ponderous, waddling, and deliberate, but also light and airy. It would start slowly, a false crescendo that sang of the false dawn before calming again, and then, with light, quick notes, the Sun would peek its way over the horizon and rise. Maybe he could do one for the sunset as well. And maybe noon.

  In fact, he could do an entire series, movements of the sun and moon. The sun would be more energetic, and then pieces on the moon could be calm, quiet; peaceful.

  The more Gel thought about it, the more an entire concerto devoted to the Heavens intrigued him. Movements for the Sun and the Moon, and the stars, maybe even the planets and the seasons.

  As such, Gel was distracted, chewing half-heartedly at a link of sausage as juices dribbled slowly down his chin. He was humming what would be the beginning of the first movement to himself while reaching to wipe off the sausage grease when Dan’r spoke.