by kubasik
I'd remained still, you see, for so long. After finally cutting myself off from all people, there had been no more reason to run off. So I had sat around. But—and I want to make this clear—I didn't run off only because I couldn't make a commitment. There's always been a strong bit of the Passion of Floranuus in me. Motion, even more than your mother, has been my companion, and I love it for its own sake.
You know it, too? Don't you? As a troubadour, the love of the tale, the gestures of the hand to toss off the word, the tilting of the head to portray one character or another.
Subtle motion, to be sure, but motion nonetheless. The motion of a small gesture that conjures up great passions, deep sorrows, and glorious victories. Out of the house we ran, and up the stairs toward the platform. Neden gasped as he looked down at the gulf between us and the ground. I felt his hand tug away as he swooned, and I pulled him along. "Don't look down if you can't," I shouted. "I can!" he declared, suddenly, stubbornly a boy. He began leaning over the edge to prove it, and I shouted, "I believe you. Come on!"
We rushed up to the platform. The vibrations of a half a dozen mercenaries behind us shook their way up the stairs. Standing now on my observation platform as the stars began to twinkle to life, surrounded by the broad leafed canopy of the jungle, a young boy in danger beside me, villains with swords clamoring up the stairs like noisy vipers, I felt one thought nudging every other out of my head, and it was this: How strange life is, and in particular, my own peculiar permutation of its possibilities.
"WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?" Neden cried out, clinging to my hand so tightly I'm surprised it didn't drop off from lack of blood. It was a fair question, worthy of a well constructed solution. Unfortunately, I had nothing to offer.
Yet, luckily, I was under no obligation to immediately admit this to the lad. The ruffians at our back charged and screamed up after us, and I used their impending arrival to distract him from the trap I'd led us to. I grabbed the table where I'd spent years mapping out the stars, and rolled it toward the steps. Again, screams of surprise from the mercenaries, this time mixed with horror. The table knocked some of the swordsmen off the stairs, sending them plummeting dozens and dozens of yards to the jungle floor. Most survived the table's assault, however, and were regrouping and preparing to charge up once more.
Nonetheless, Neden shouted "Hoorah!" (or something in that vein) and I felt a momentary surge of joy in my heart. After living the second half of my life as the bogeyman of Barsaive, the fact that I could still please a child meant a great deal to me.
The excitement turned to terror within a heartbeat. A shadow passed over us, and I turned slightly to see a Theran airship floating toward us, its stone hull skimming over the leafy roof of the jungle.
11
Directly opposite us from the ship floated the scarlet setting sun, and it created a brilliant aura of blood around the magical vessel. Therans—humans, elves, and trolls—all dressed in red and black armor, hung from either side of the ship on rope ladders. All held swords in their hands and wore smiles of anticipation on their faces. At the ship's bow stood Mordom, his eyes with lids sewn shut, dark pockets against the shadows of the day's end.
His hand with Garlthik's eye stared down at me. Here we were, confronting each other once more after so many years. This time, however, I was an adult, in full command of my capacities and myself. It seemed we were beginning a battle that would bring us both to the edge of our abilities—and then drive us beyond them.
"So," I called to him (more than a little melodramatically, I'm afraid), "we meet again."
The ship floated closer. Mordom's face crinkled in confusion. "Do I know you?" he shouted down at me.
I nearly laughed, thinking the magician was trying to trick me. "I am J'role, the boy who stole the Ring of Longing from you more than half a lifetime ago."
"No," he shouted back. "I can't say I remember you."
"The city of Parlainth," I declared, hands on hips, still standing as if posing for a statue, but increasingly alarmed at my resolve for an epic confrontation. It appeared that my significance in the Universe was even smaller than I had originally imagined.
For a moment Mordom's face seemed about to relax in recognition. Then it wrinkled in deep concentration again. And then finally he said, "AH! The boy with Garlthik One Eye!"
"You know Garlthik One Eye?" asked Neden with awed curiosity.
"Yes," I said softly, attempting to diminish his interest in my mentor. It seemed ridiculous that the boy should have heard about the ork and be impressed with him. I had half a mind to tell Neden that I was in fact that J'role from the rhyme of his childhood, the one responsible for mutilating children. That would put things back in perspective. But I put my focus on Mordom. It was with him that I truly wanted to settle matters. I had killed him, and his dismissal of me made my accomplishment more than moot; it was as if I'd never been born. I shouted, "The one who landed you in a pit full of spikes. I should think you'd remember that!"
Neden tugged on my hand. "They're really close; J'role."
"I only remember things of significance. You killed me. But I live now!" He laughed, put his eyeless hand on the railing and leaned forward. "What use is it to dwell on it? I had a whole new life to lead. Did you expect that I'd been brooding over it since my resurrection?"
I almost shouted, "Yes! Of course I expected you to brood about it!" His point of view was far too removed and mature to suit my tastes. Little boy energy crawled through my flesh, demanding attention, daring a reprimand. Me, an old man, body thin and skin wrinkled. And yet, as you know, I've retained a bit of myself from youth through all these years. "I just wanted you to know who it was standing in the way of your plans again." I laughed a hollow laugh that I carried off with great aplomb.
The ship was only yards away now. The air had chilled on my flesh, the evening's remaining heat buried under the Shadow of the vessel. Neden tugged my arm several more times, speaking my name with so urgency. The surviving mercenaries had reached the platform, carefully ascending this time, their swords thrust forward like the beaks of cautious, hungry birds. The Theran soldiers clung to the airship's rope ladders, like drops of blood on the thorns of a corrupted elf, waiting for the impending moment when they could slide off and let loose a wash of red on the platform.
I crouched. "On my back boy." Neden hesitated only a moment, then did as I said, wrapping his thick arms around my neck. He was heavy, I tell you. But the touch of his flesh against mine sent a shock of magic through me—the magic of memories and emotion. Once more I focused, aware of a boy in danger. I would have to do better than was done for me so many years earlier when I was in his position. I didn't want him simply to survive. I needed to pull him out of the adventure as quickly as possible. I needed him to go on with his life untainted.
The airship swept over the platform. A Theran troll dropped down, landing only two yards away. Then another Theran soldier and then a third—a human and an elf, respectively. As with all the Therans, each seemed a perfect example of his race—stones smoothed by centuries of wind and water so that all that remained was the perfect core.
Beautiful. Essential.
Out the corner of my eye I took stock of the mercenaries. In awe of the airship and the Theran soldiers, they seemed content to block my exit down the stairs and watch as the Therans slaughtered me.
The Therans, each armed with long swords gleaming with the last rays of scarlet sunlight, lunged forward. Neden screamed, his arms tightening reflexively, his grip choking me.
But we had a chance. I moved forward, as if about to try to break past them somehow.
They adjusted themselves accordingly, spacing themselves so could not charge past them.
As all of this happened, the airship continued to fly on over Neden and I. A rope ladder swung toward me, and instead of rushing forward, I jumped up, catching a rung with the tips of my fingers. Neden screamed again. My fingers slipped off the rope and we dropped quickly—a burp of suspense
until I caught another rung, this time with a better grip. "Neden," I gasped as loudly as I could manage, "you're choking me."
He loosened his grip for just a moment, then tightened it again, this time with a shriek, as the ladder swung wildly. "J'role!" he shouted. "Look."
I looked up and saw a human woman armed with a short sword making her way down the ladder to us.
"All want is the boy," Mordom shouted down at me from the airship's railing. His voice scratched like the scuttle of centipedes on stone walls. "There's no need for this to continue. If we've had a grudge in the past, it is of no concern to me now. Just give me the boy."
We'd traveled beyond the platform by this time, and only yards beneath my feet the broad leaves of the jungle rooftop rushed by like the deep green waves of an ocean. Back on the platform the mercenaries and Theran soldiers stood staring at us, somewhat dimwitted it seemed to me, like childhood bullies surprised to learn that their soft spoken victim would rather run than get the snot kicked out of him.
"What are we going to do?" Neden whispered softly. He'd gained control of his nerves, and though still frightened, there was a touch of slyness in his voice. He was ready to follow whatever plan I produced.
Again, however, no plan existed within my skull. It was at that moment I realized the boy was more than just a burden on my back. He was a burden in my thoughts as well, limiting the strategies available. Chances I might take that might lead to my death were not available to me.
As these thoughts filled my head, a terrible urge overwhelmed me. I wanted to shrug Neden off, be free of him, live my life as foolishly as I pleased without concern for others. The thief magic coursed through my muscles begging this choice of action.
My muscles tensed.
He would die from the fall, I knew that. His stocky body would crack through branches and leaves until it smashed into the ground far below. But I would be better off. I could move more freely. I could take actions without concern for anyone but myself. I might well be able to leap to a branch below, cling tenaciously, and then make my way down the tree. Without the boy, it was possible.
Rationalizations piled up thick in my skull. I had not asked him to enter my life. And if he died, it would be as if I had never involved myself with him.
In fact, he would be better off dead. It was clear the magician wanted the heir to Throal alive. Memories of Mordom torturing Garlthik with the strange, black Horror came to the fore of my thoughts. And the torture he'd inflicted on my father's mind, finishing the work begun by my father's alcohol, turning him into a babbling, broken rag doll of a man.
Could I risk Neden falling into Mordom's hands?
Of course not.
"Sorry, boy," I said, though I was not. I reached one hand up and undid his clasped arms from around my neck.
12
"J'role?" he said, his voice just a sigh, the silent death of a beautiful flower drowned by too much rain.
I turned my body, twisted him off my back. He cried out, and fumbled for a grip on my shoulders. Anger filled me now. How dare he resist me, after all I'd done for him! I struggled to shove him off me. He slipped further down my back, grabbing my waist at the last moment. The sudden tug on my body almost sent the two of us sprawling through the air. Above me, Mordom shouted for me to come to my senses.
Confusion of past and present caught me up again. A lost memory of emotion entered my thoughts—water rushing around me, choking the corridors of the Breeton. My father on my back. Enfeebled and incompetent, he'd clung to me, dragging the two of us back into the water flooding the deep corridors of the riverboat. He was so weak. I'd hated him for that! Now I had the boy dragging me into the confrontation with Mordom. But then, after I had—after I had—after I had killed him—
Killed my father.
Killed my father.
Had to free myself, you see. Had to get him off my back. To get clear of the sinking ship.
On with my life. To move on. You carried a sword here, you see. You know. You know.
But after the death. So much—
A torrent of regret, both for my father's murder and for my actions with Neden, washed over me. I gasped at the terror of it. The thief magic began to drown, gurgling for me to listen to reason. To live alone. Apart.
The Theran soldier, having made her way down the rope ladder, was upon us. At the moment I felt my muscles tighten. A spell from Mordom, I realized immediately. The grip of my hands; frozen on the rope rungs, did not allow any action on my part.
"Here," said the woman. "Come here, boy." I was forgotten. She stretched her arm past my head, down along my back, extending it so Neden could take it.
"J'role," the boy said, still desperate for an ally in a world of enemies.
I could not answer him. I could not move my jaw.
"Ignore him, boy," the soldier said. "We've got to get you back home. The men who were after you— those mercenaries—they wanted to hurt you. We're here to help you—"
"No. You—"
"Listen. We're here to help you."
Neden swung himself around on the rope ladder. The moment his weight lifted, loneliness consumed me. I wanted him again on my back. Somewhere a balance existed between love and suffocation. Where was it?
Now that I no longer supported the boy, the soldier was free to do with me what she wished. Though my muscles had frozen, my eyes could move, and I glanced up to see her smiling a wicked smile. She raised her sword. Moments like this had occurred throughout my life, but this time it seemed I was surely dead. I hadn't counted on the boy. His morale was made of stronger stuff than I'd imagined, and neither Mordom's overwhelming forces, nor my inconsistent loyalty was enough to break him. He reached up and grabbed the soldier's right foot with both hands, then fell back, dragging her leg through the gap in the rope ladder, dangling from her leg, his face a fury of concentration and fear. She lost her balance and toppled down on top of me, her sword dropping from her hands and tumbling down.
She clutched at me as she twisted around. Luckily my hands were frozen around the ladder, or the sudden jolt would have loosened my grip and sent us after the sword.
Neden's face was now even with mine, and he stared at me with panicked eyes, silently asking, "What should I do now?"
With nothing but the exhalation of breath at my command, I wheezed, "Let go!"—though it sounded more like "Hett ko!" through my paralyzed lips. But he caught my meaning and released the soldier's foot and took hold of the ladder rungs once more.
Suddenly relieved of her ballast, the soldier's balance gave out. Her grip on me loosened and she fell from my back, clawing for a moment at my shoulders. Her scream was silenced by the crash of her body through the upper branches of the jungle canopy. At almost the same instant Mordom's spell dissipated and I was free. Without waiting another moment I began scrambling up the ladder.
The memories of my father's death—murder—left me with no choice but to try to help Neden. The question before me was this: By the time I died, what kind of life did I want to have led? Things had already gone wrong so often in the past, but that didn't mean I couldn't try to recover a sliver of my spirit. Redemption is one of my favorite themes in stories, though not particularly fashionable these days—we live in a time when no one wants to feel bad or be responsible for his actions—but I'm somewhat old fashioned.
Actually, I think I'm lying. It's hard, you know, looking hack, trying to remember how one framed one's life in the past. The perspective one has, the story we make up for ourselves to give meager order to our existence, changes with time, as new details accumulate and we need to reshape our narrative to accommodate them. Only upon our death can our true tale be told. By picking and choosing we form the arc of our narrative.
It's all arbitrary in the end, I suppose. But I think that believing one's life to be a story helps one get through the day. At least around four in the afternoon, when things seem a bit sluggish.
So the thought of redemption had not been in my head throug
h most of my life, nor even as I scrambled up the rope ladder in the Theran airship. In no way did I think myself redeemable. As I scrambled up the ladder I thought of myself only as a miserable man, seeded with m misery in his early years, and doomed to bear the fruit of misery.
But I could not wake up the next day with another murder on my hands. I tried to save Neden simply because I was tired of feeling bad.
I suppose turns of the soul have to begin somewhere.
Up the ladder. "Wait there!" I cried to Neden.
Mordom waved his hands in order to cast a spell, and I felt my muscles tighten for a moment. But the spell did not take hold and I continued. Another soldier came down toward me, waving his sword. I dodged the cuts, back and forth, then made a feint that sent me lunging off to the right. With one hand firmly gripping the rope of the ladder, the other reached out and grabbed the crossguard of the soldier's sword. I tugged the sword forward, pulling the soldier off the ladder. A moment of surprise on his face (he was the hero of his story, and not supposed to die so awkwardly,) as he fell forward, shifting wildly and uselessly to keep his balance, and then plunged off the ladder. His grip on the sword loosened as his life loosened from the world, and I plucked it from his hand.
