Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth)

by Matthew Medina

  “I guess not, I just...it’s not going to be easy, and—”

  Silena laughed out loud, interrupting Catelyn.

  “By the Divines, Catelyn. It couldn’t possibly be harder than trying to stay here, hiding from the Imperials and waiting for them to take what little I have left. Besides, I owe it to the girls to try and offer them a better life.”

  Catelyn looked up, smiled and embraced Silena. She honestly had not been expecting that Silena would make the decision to come with her, but she wasn’t disappointed to have heard Silena make the suggestion. Catelyn was in fact overjoyed by the idea that Silena was willing to come with her and leave the Seat forever. The two women held each other a moment, quietly weeping. After several whispers, they released each other and resumed their planning.

  For the next three prayers, they went over their plan in every detail, until the both of them could recite it by memory. Neither of them quite knew what the likelihood of their plan working was and she presumed that it was at best a slim chance, but for the first time, Catelyn felt real hope that her circumstances might finally change.

  Catelyn had spent the remainder of that evening enjoying a meal with Silena, before the older woman excused herself to get some sleep. Catelyn wasn’t feeling tired enough for sleep herself, and she decided to find Ortis to tell him their plans.

  As she walked through the apartment, she grew impressed by the size of the space Ortis had carved out for himself here. He had managed to occupy the entire top floor of the building, though Catelyn was hard pressed to understand what he had been intending to do with all of the space. She could see that the top floor had at one time been comprised of four separate living units, but Ortis had removed the doors separating them to create one massive living space. He had occupied one corner, the northwest, leaving Catelyn and Silena to take up the rest.

  Catelyn’s “room” was more like an apartment unto itself. It had once been the main living area of one of them, now converted into an extra room, though completely lacking in furniture. Even the pile of blankets which she had found covering her earlier that morning were probably taken from somewhere else in the home.

  It seemed strange that a man like Ortis would have a secret residence to begin with, much less one that was nearly barren and four times larger than he needed for himself. Many things about the man didn’t make sense, but she knew that Silena was right to suggest that they would need to figure out a way to work with him, at least until they got out of the Seat.

  She found him sitting in a wide backed chair, with his eyes closed and his hands crossed in his lap. He appeared to be meditating, but as she moved into the room where he sat, his steel blue eyes snapped open and pinned her to the spot where she stood with their intensity.

  For a number of breaths, they simply stared at one another. Catelyn looked at the structure of his face, at his intense energy, and unexpectedly came to the conclusion that Ortis must have been an incredibly handsome man in his prime. He still bore his looks well, but age had taken its toll, and she wondered what he must have looked like in his youth. She wasn’t sure why such thoughts would have crossed her mind, and she set them aside. Instead, she recalled his confession for the crimes he had willingly admitted to.

  “Silena, her friends and I are going to be leaving the Seat before the end of the span. We’re going to need your help,” she said, as simply and as bluntly as she could.

  Ortis stared into her eyes for a handful of breaths, then simply closed his eyes again, and said a simple “No.”

  Catelyn was completely frustrated by this man. Nothing he did made sense to her, and at times it felt as though they came from two completely different worlds. Perhaps they did, in some ways. How else could she explain his willingness to live most of his life in subservience to a madman, killing and destroying on a whim?

  And all he wants is for me to kill him, she thought.

  Standing there, thinking about this man and his crimes, she began to wonder why it was so hard for her to answer his request. If anyone in this place deserved death, it was the man sitting in the room before her. Despite her distaste for killing, she had done so before, in the defense of her life and that of others, but that was the part that was nagging at her.

  Whatever Ortis was, what he had been before he had met her, the man who sat here now was different. She knew it as surely as she knew anything. She had seen the man begin to show restraint, begin to show signs that indicated to Catelyn that the man was no longer the same thoughtless butcher he had been.

  She had witnessed for herself that he hadn’t lost his capability to kill, of course. She only needed to close her eyes to remember the efficiency with which he’d dispatched the three Imperial soldiers on their way out of the Citadel. She hadn’t specifically asked, but she could imagine that there might have been others that he had been forced to eliminate on their way to this hideout of his. But even in the face of that, those deaths had been to prevent their escape attempt from being stopped.

  If Catelyn was honest with herself,and she was fully aware that her ideas might be naive, but she felt as though the man sitting before her would never again simply kill indiscriminately, and that some part of him genuinely regretted his past actions. What other reason could he have for expressing his wish to have his life ended? If he didn’t feel such overwhelming guilt and regret? The man seemed overwhelmed with remorse at having abdicated his humanity for so long on behalf of the Emperor.

  What she couldn’t fathom though, was why he insisted that his death come so suddenly, and that it had to be her to do the killing.

  She realized that when she considered the monumental scope of his crimes, that yes, she probably could kill him if necessary. But she was going to need that lethality of his if Catelyn and her friends were going to get into Belkyn and through the Grand Gate. Catelyn still needed to convince Ortis however, and she thought for a moment longer before she spoke.

  She knew Ortis to be a man of few words, so she tried to keep her arguments concise.

  “Ortis, it’s not safe for my friends or I here. Not any longer. We can’t remain indoors forever, no matter how secure and secret you’ve made this...compound.”

  Ortis’ eyes flickered open, and he looked directly into her own eyes. His intense gaze was intimidating, but she made a point to stand her ground and she stared right back at him as she continued.

  “But you know, better than anyone, that we can’t simply travel the streets in the bright of day through the Seat and into Belkyn. Would you agree that it would be a mistake to do so?”

  Ortis nodded slowly. Catelyn sighed.

  Progress, at the very least, she thought, carefully formulating what she would say next.

  “A man with your knowledge, and your skills, might be able to get us through the Seat undetected. You’ve kept this place for sojourns, I can tell, and you feel safe here. Safe enough to bring the three of us here when we are all no doubt the subjects of a citywide Imperial man hunt. That can only mean that the Emperor is unaware of this place.”

  “Uriel is aware that I have a refuge somewhere in the city, but he never asked where it was,” he admitted.

  Catelyn nodded.

  “But Silena and I can’t stay here. She has her girls and Erich to get back to, and I intend to leave the Seat or die trying. You said yourself that the rations would run out, and we can’t very well just go down to the market to restock. I know that Silena said the Seat looks normal from where we are, but you and I know that your former men will be searching the city for all of us.”

  “I cannot help you,” Ortis said again. Catelyn was not at all surprised by this reply, but she was growing more and more frustrated by his stubborn refusals.

  “Why?” Catelyn wanted to know.

  He stood and crossed to stand in front of her, and she became very aware of how tall he was. She stood her ground, and craned her neck to look up at him, but once he stood close enough to touch, he knelt on the ground, putting his head at her eye l
evel. He tilted his head back, exposed this throat to her, and produced a sharp, wicked looking dagger from somewhere on his person and held it out to her. She considered herself quite observant, but she hadn’t known he was armed, and she wondered how many other weapons he had on him.

  “I care not what you do, but you must kill me,” he croaked. She could see tears spilling from his closed eyes. She reached out and took the dagger from his hand, considering. Her heart hammered in her chest as she thought about his life in her hands, felt the cold metal in her palms.

  She supposed that if they had to, she and Silena could figure out a way to get out of the city without him. He seemed as though he would never give up this foolishness. Was he more use to them dead than alive?

  She looked down at the dagger, and then up at Ortis. He was breathing heavily, anticipating the slash across his throat feeling as though some force were propelling her. She raised her arm and placed the edge of the blade against his stubbly chin. She saw him swallow.

  She let the blade sink into his flesh, and watched as it drew the tiniest drop of blood. The crimson fluid fell along the blade, tracing a line along the razor sharp edge of the blade. She let it linger there a moment, and then she removed the dagger from his throat, making her decision.

  He opened his eyes, and glowered at her.

  “Are you a coward?” he growled.

  Catelyn looked directly into his eyes, meeting his intensity with her own, as she explained herself.

  “I suppose I can understand why you would so readily welcome death. And I would give it to you.”

  She raised the dagger, showing him the line of blood along the edge.

  “This blood is my promise to you, that when the time comes, I will finish what I began here today. I will kill you, but I need one more thing from you first. When I am done with you; then, and only then, will I release you from your pain. You asked if I were a coward. Allow me to return the favor. Are you a coward, that you can’t withstand that pain until then?”

  She turned the dagger over, wiped the blood from the blade with her palm, and placed the blade in the waistband of her pants.

  Ortis looked at her, pondering. Then, something happened she had never expected to see. Ortis smiled.

  “I accept your terms,” he said smugly.

  Catelyn nodded her head in agreement and in acknowledgment of their deal. She turned and made her way towards the door, and at the threshold, she stopped and looked back at Ortis. He was watching her, a strange expression on his face. She had to ask him.

  “Why does it have to be me?”

  Ortis smiled again, and once more she was reminded that Ortis had been a handsome man, a fact which surprisingly saddened her in the face of the ugliness of his actions throughout the sojourns.

  “When the time comes, and you finish what you started, I will tell you,” he replied.

  Catelyn paused, disappointed, and then turned from the room, calling back over her shoulder.

  “Fair enough.”

  Chapter 21

  Catelyn, Silena and Ortis spent half of the next day finalizing the last of their plans for their escape from the Seat, discussing and mentally rehearsing the plan until they each knew their parts thoroughly as they needed, to be put into motion the following day. Ortis had insisted that he would leave first, making his way through the streets at midday. He was convinced that alone, he could navigate around the Imperial patrols and prepare a place for them at the boundary of the Seat, just inside the Belkyn Channel. He told them of a long abandoned warehouse in the industrial district, far from Imperial eyes, and Catelyn and Silena agreed that it sounded like a safe place to hole up in midway through their journey.

  Silena would leave next, and make her way to her man Erich’s home. He had taken to living and sleeping at her home the past sojourn or so, but when she had agreed to help Ortis with his escape attempt of Catelyn, Erich had taken the two girls to his home instead, where they no doubt awaited word from her. She would wait until midday on the following day, and then all four of them would make their way across the Seat towards the agreed upon meeting place at the boundary of the Belkyn Channel.

  Catelyn would wait until the evening of the second day, and would make her way across the rooftops to the warehouse where the others would be waiting. If everything went as planned, then all of them would be making their way up the Belkyn Channel by the morning of the third day.

  Ortis assured them that he knew of an alternate path through the highly trafficked Belkyn Channel. That was, according to him, going to be the easy part. The hard part was going to be getting to the Grand Gate in Belkyn without being stopped and questioned, or searched. Ortis was clear that he expected to be recognized by many of the people in Belkyn, having just conducted a campaign against the “uprising” there mere spans ago.

  Ortis had explained to Catelyn and Silena how there had in fact been no uprising to speak of. There had been some grumbling among the local laborers, that had not even amounted to more than a few loudmouths complaining to one another in a dingy tavern. But the men had been talking loud enough for the local Imperial officer nursing a bottle at the other end of the bar to overhear them, and submit his report to his own superiors. As was common for any report of this nature, the incident was quickly escalated and then exaggerated, and before the day was out, Ortis found himself being ordered to Belkyn to “quell an uprising”.

  Ortis had done as ordered, but those orders had left their mark on the citizens living in Belkyn and upon the man who had carried out those orders. But Catelyn insisted that despite this problem, they were going to have to carry out the first part of their plan and make it into Belkyn, where the Imperial presence there would potentially be less focused on three fugitives and more focused on maintaining general order.

  All of these factors would make certain parts of their plan easier, and other parts potentially harder. They wouldn’t truly know what awaited them until they exited the Belkyn Channel into the city proper.

  Catelyn now waited alone in the apartment of Ortis, eating up as much of Ortis’ stores as she could stomach, rinsing her clothing and bathing with water that Ortis had brought up from a well nearby, a pleasant surprise, and packing her gear and clothing, along with a substantial amount of the reserve food stores in her pack for the trip to Belkyn.

  After she had packed everything that she would need for the trip, she spent some of her remaining time studying Ortis’ apartment in detail, going from room to room, hoping to discover some small piece of his personality in the decor or furnishings. But every piece of furniture was as bland as the Empire’s decrees had specified they be. In fact if there was a quality to the apartment, Catelyn would say that it was the very definition of Uriel’s desire to keep order through monotony.

  Nothing stood out, and nothing was out of place. It was perfect in its homogeny. Precisely the way that the Emperor wanted.

  Catelyn strolled through the apartment, rearranging the furniture so that it was no longer perfectly ordered, leaving drawers and cupboards open, tables and chairs askew or laid down onto their sides. She imagined Ortis’ protests at finding his apartment in such disorder, but then she soberly realized that none of them may survive to see this place of refuge again, and her minor rebellion would not matter a whit.

  Finally, she came to Ortis’ room. In the few days they had been hiding there, she had never come all the way into Ortis’ quarters, and she felt her curiosity tickling at her mind. She decided that if they were all going to die, there would be no harm in exploring a little. As she walked into Ortis’ rooms, she came across something from the Before, an impressive example of something that she had not seen since she was a child, and the sight of it took her breath away. Ortis had, in one corner of his room, a full length mirror held in an ornate wooden frame. It was a masterful piece of art, and stood out among the rest of the bland furnishings.

  Catelyn ran up to the mirror, marveling as she saw her own reflection running towards her, and t
hen stop mere finger widths away. The mirrors she had seen as a child had all been small, no bigger than her hand, and were usually dirty and cracked. This mirror was flawless and polished, and her mirror self was rendered with perfect clarity. She reached out with a hand, and felt her heart race as her mirror counterpart did the same, but with its opposite hand. She smiled, and her mirror self smiled back, showing her mostly straight, but dingy, teeth and Catelyn stuck out her tongue, then laughed at the sight of her mirror self doing the same.

  The last time that Catelyn had seen her reflection, she had been just a girl, with no hair and stick straight arms and legs looking at herself in a puddle of rainwater. The young woman who looked back at her now was almost unrecognizable to her.

  She looked closely at her face, and marveled at who was looking back at her.

  Her red hair, which she normally kept trimmed to her jawline was long now, hanging to shoulder length, and unkempt and tangled. She hadn’t been able to brush it since before all of the events of the past several spans, and it showed. Not that it had been particularly neat before, when she had been blind. She hadn’t packed the makeshift comb she had fashioned from an old metal vent plate. She ran her fingers through it, trying to untangle the worst of it as she continued to study the rest of her face.

  Her forehead and cheeks were smooth, but she could make out the faintest hint of undulating rings of pale skin, radiating outward from around her eyes, and encircling her upper face like a mask. To Catelyn’s shock, not a trace of the scar tissue from the damage that had been done remained, just these ghostly lines across her face; a reminder of what had been done to her as a child. She moved her fingers from the task of untangling her hair and ran them along the skin of her face. It was smooth to the touch, and reminded her of that of a newborn, which she had touched once during one of the many outings her family had attended with the other chosen parents, when she herself had been a child.

  Her eyes were green, but where they had been quite an ordinary shade of dull green before, at least as far as she remembered them, they were now radiant, catching and amplifying the light in ways that she could only describe as abnormal. Silena had said that her eyes glowed when they had been out in the dim pre-dawn light. Catelyn stepped over to the lantern in Ortis’ room, and closed the shutters, making the room darker. Even from where she stood, far away from the mirror, she could see her reflected eyes indeed caught the dim light in the room and glowed in the gloom. Catelyn also noted that her vision in the darkened room was as good as it had been when the lantern shutters had been open. It seemed to confirm her suspicions that whatever had restored her sight and repaired the damage to her face and eyes had also changed her.