Allie's War Season Two

by JC Andrijeski

  “Yes,” Nenzi nods, handing him the bowl for another refill. He watches as the seer regains his feet, walking easily back to the fire. “I am told you did Rajan’s....the sea creatures.”

  Wreg acknowledges this with a dismissive gesture from by the pot. Filling the bowl a third time, he straightens, bringing it back to the younger seer.

  “Yes,” he says simply. “I did that one.”

  “It is good work,” Nenzi says.

  Surprise blossoms faintly in the older seer’s eyes, but it doesn’t reach his expression. “Are you buttering me up for something, Nenz?” he says only. “Or should I simply say, thank you, brother...and hope for the best?”

  Nenzi ignores the other’s smile.

  “Would you do some for me?” he says. “I can pay.”

  Wreg’s eyes turn faintly predatory in the pause, but there is a wariness there too, just visible above the softer smile.

  “Some?” he says, still watching the other eat. “Just how many do you want, little brother? Are you looking to recreate the pantheon on your back?”

  “I want two,” he says, again ignoring the other’s sarcasm. “Two of the colored drawings. I want them to be with seer ink...the ones that remain.”

  Wreg’s eyes grow appraising once more.

  “What are these inks you want, young brother?” he says. “What are the symbols?”

  Nenzi looks around the low-ceilinged room, still eating the stew, although much slower now, savoring the pieces of meat. Swallowing what is chewed and in his mouth, he gestures around the room with one hand.

  “Do you have the Second Codex?” he says.

  Wreg gives him a faintly surprised smile, then nods, once.

  Rising to his feet, he walks to a cabinet not far from the foot of his bed, one obscured in shadows that lay outside the circle of firelight. Nenzi watches him open the wooden doors, revealing a number of shelves holding leather-bound books and papers tied with thongs and even rolled and fastened with heavier weights.

  Glancing over spines, Wreg uses the tips of his fingers to tug out one of the larger volumes. A few inches in thickness, it wears a thick, leather cover, dyed forest green. He brings it over to the younger seer, who watches as he places it on the cot, only about a foot from his leg. Nenzi’s eyes don’t leave the book as he sets his bowl on the wooden floor, wiping his hands carefully on his shirt until they are completely dry.

  He leans over the book, opening its cover gingerly before sliding his fingers between pages to reach somewhere in the middle of the book. Once in the rough section he wants, he flips through pages, scanning the numbers on the sides.

  Wreg grunts, watching him.

  Nenzi hears something in his voice that almost sounds impressed.

  “You can find it without the key?” he says, his voice musing. “I must admit, I would never have guessed you would know the Commentaries so well, runt...even with who your uncle is.”

  Nenzi ignores this, flipping two more pages before his fingers rest on the segment he is looking for. He points at the passages, waiting for Wreg to move himself so that he is seated on the cot on the other side, so that the book lies between them.

  “Here,” he says, unnecessarily. “Can you do this one?”

  “The whole segment? 1023 - 1055?”

  “Yes.”

  Wreg reads it, squinting somewhat in the dim light. When he finishes, he raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment, and Nenzi feels the other seer keeping the bulk of his reaction out of his light, where he might see it.

  “Can you do it in the original language?” he says. “The old tongue, I mean?”

  Wreg gestures assent, as though this were a detail. Looking up from the book once more, where he is apparently reading the passage again, he gives Nenzi a neutral look.

  “And where do you want this thing?” he says.

  Nenzi points to the upper part of his left arm.

  “There?” Wreg frowns. “You want the text to circle there? Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  There is a silence where Wreg only looks at him. Then he gestures at him again, his eyes once more neutral.

  “And the other? You said there are two you want?”

  Nenzi gestures a yes. “I want the Sword and Sun...the old version. I want the one with the high flames, with the gold center. Blue, white...gold.”

  Wreg’s eyes narrow again slightly. “And where do you want this one, my friend?”

  He points to his left shoulder. “I’d like it to be big,” he adds. “Can you do that, brother?”

  Wreg only looks at him again for a moment, his arms folded, his dark eyes unwavering. Finally, he sighs at whatever he sees in the other’s face, clicking a little under his breath.

  “Are you sure you don’t have the placements backwards, runt? You know what you are asking for, don’t you?”

  Nenzi nods. “I am sure.”

  But Wreg’s eyes remain unconvinced.

  “The left shoulder,” he says finally. “You know what this place means?”

  Nenzi gestures another yes. “Yes, brother. It is what I will live for.”

  “And the left arm?”

  “It is what I will die for.”

  Wreg frowns a bit, still looking at him, as if trying to read past his eyes, without reaching out directly with his light.

  “It is not tradition, Nenzi,” he says. “You know we wear the Sword and Sun there...on the arm. It is where we all wear it. All of us...and it is so in the old texts...”

  Nenzi nods. “I know,” he says. Meeting his gaze, he lets Wreg feel him, something he almost never does. He opens his light, holding his gaze, so that the other seer will feel his truth.

  “It is not disrespect, brother,” he says then. “It is not.”

  Wreg only looks at him, but it is clear from his face that he has felt what Nenzi showed him. He grunts a little, his eyes still assessing as he studies his face.

  “Okay,” he says. “Yes, I see that. I just do not understand...” Trailing, he shrugs again, as if not sure what to add to this.

  “Do you need to?” Nenzi asks.

  Wreg frowns at him. After another pause, he sighs again, clicking.

  “No, brother...I do not.” He continues to look at him though, that frown on his lips. “And you want seer ink, Nenz? Those do not come off so easily, runt...and while I may believe you that there is no disrespect in this, others may not...”

  “I don’t care about the others,” he says.

  “You should,” Wreg says, quieter. “They are your kin.”

  “Then they should respect my will,” he says, looking up at Wreg. “It is not for them I do this...not for them, nor against them.”

  After another pause, Wreg nods again, his eyes grudging.

  “Yes,” he says. “I see this, too.”

  “...And I do not want these to come off,” Nenzi adds, his voice hard for the first time. “I want them deep, Wreg. As deep as you can make them.”

  After another pause, where the older seer seems to be trying to read his face once more, he nods...decisively this time.

  “Yes,” he says. “I can do that.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  Wreg is already standing.

  He walks back to his bed as Nenzi watches, kneeling down to pull a wooden box out from under the frame. He unlocks the iron latch with a key he keeps around his neck, then opens the top and rummages through clothing and other belongings inside. Nenzi continues to watch as he pulls out a hand-held device of some greenish-colored metal. He has seen it a few times, in this set of barracks...and even on the field, as seers used it to tally their human kills on their skin. Wreg then shuffles more items around, and pulls out a number of smaller glass jars. Several of these are filled with some clear liquid, but three of them carry colors so bright they seem to glow in the dim, fire-lit room.

  Anticipation prickles his skin as the seer rolls all of this up in a stretched skin, grabbing a bag out of
the top of the bin and bringing all of it over to him.

  “Take off your shirt,” he says then, gesturing matter-of-factly.

  Nenzi barely hesitates before he starts to pulls the thing over his head, wincing as it sticks to dried blood from cuts on his skin. He shifts his weight on the cot as he pulls it off, exposing his left arm and side to the older seer as Wreg lays out his tools on the cot.

  “Do we need to cover the sheets?” Nenzi says. “There will be a lot of blood, right?”

  But Wreg doesn’t answer him.

  When Nenzi glances back, he sees the seer staring at his back, his eyes holding an open disbelief. Grief replaces the bewilderment in the older seer’s eyes as Nenzi watches, bringing an odd pain to his chest once he realizes what it is from. He tries to find words, to explain this away somehow, but his throat closes around any he might have had.

  “Gaos d’argulem...” Wreg says finally. “What happened to you, runt?”

  Nenzi’s throat tightens more.

  He shakes it off, gesturing dismissively.

  “Can you work around it?” he says. “Is there room for what I want?”

  Wreg frowns when Nenzi looks at him again, but it is clear from his eyes that he hears the evasion in the other’s voice, the unwillingness to discuss it.

  After another pause, he gestures back, just as dismissively.

  “Yes. It will not get in the way.” He pauses then, his eyes returning to his tools as he lays out the jars in a row on the cloth he has spread. He glances again at the younger seer’s back, and his eyes hold something for a moment, enough to make him pause. Then Wreg carefully blanks his face again, pulling a stack of clean rags from the bag down by his feet on the floor.

  “I do not mean to question your judgment, Nenz,” he says into the silence. “I only want you to be sure. It takes a lot to scar a seer. To really scar them. We tend to heal...unless it is too deep to grow over...”

  Nenzi nods, hearing the second meaning behind this, too.

  “I know,” is all he says, his voice neutral.

  He is walking down an alleyway behind the same bar, hours later.

  It is dark outside now. He had less trouble talking Wreg into letting him go than he thought he would. He promised him he would not stay out of doors for long, or let anyone see him on the street...but he is still surprised the other let him leave.

  His shoulder hurts, and his arm, but he feels exhilarated, knowing what lives under the bandages Wreg bound to his freshly-inked skin. The work is good, better even than he envisioned, and he looked at it in the mirrored glass in awe when Wreg showed him the final product. Even with parts of it bleeding still, the shocking bright of the colors overwhelmed him, and the dark permanence of the words on his flesh feel like an ongoing prayer.

  Or a promise, perhaps. To himself, as much as her.

  If he can't be with her down here, he will meet her in that other place. He will die for her. Eventually, everything he does will have been for her.

  His aleimi vibrates with the knowledge of where his feet take him now.

  When he first told his unit leader where he wanted to go, Wreg gave him a hard look.

  “What are you asking me, runt?”

  Nenzi’s face warmed as he looked at the dark eyes of the elder seer. Still, the wanting keeps him asking, keeps him from backing down from that stare.

  “Do you know of any, Wreg?” he says. “In town. I have heard rumors...”

  “You should not be frequenting such places,” the older seer warns. “You should not pay money to support such a thing. It is slavery, Nenz. It is wrong.”

  To this Nenzi can only look at him, feeling his jaw hurt like razor blades in his mouth when he bites his lip. The swelling had gone down while he slept, but his teeth and bones still hurt, enough that he blinks back a gasp when he clenches them out of habit.

  Wreg just looks at him for a moment, as if assessing him again.

  Nenzi knows enough to know that the other has been trying to get closer to him in some way, to find some means of connecting with him...of reaching him perhaps, in the hopes he might influence his behavior, maybe. He sees the difficulty of it for the older seer, enough to feel some element of gratitude, even compassion for his attempt. He sees this in the other’s eyes even now, in the other’s light, but he cannot let himself comment on it. He cannot let the other seer be overly successful, either. The thought brings another wave of that near-grief, but makes him want to be generous to the other, at least in the ways he can.

  And yet, he wants this thing. He wants it badly enough that Wreg must see some indication of the hunger on his face.

  “You haven’t before, have you?”

  Nenzi feels his jaw start to harden again. He stops it before it would hurt, but can’t stop the flush that creeps over his cheeks.

  “No,” he says, blunt.

  Wreg sighs then, clicking. Shaking his head, he walks to where Nenzi stands by the door, one of Wreg’s clean shirts thrown around his shoulders over the fresh bandages, a pair of Wreg’s pants hanging too big on his hips.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” he asks him, once he is nearer.

  Nenzi nods. “I’m sure, brother.”

  Wreg smiles. “You think you are, anyway.”

  Still the smile is not unkind, nor even overly condescending, and Nenzi finds himself relaxing a little when he reads the other’s light.

  “You’ll let me go?” he asks.

  “How much money do you have?”

  Nenzi hesitates, then walks back to the cot, where his torn and bloody pants lie on the floor. Lifting them by one end, he feels for the correct pocket, and pulls out his winnings from the fighting he did the night Gretchen’s brothers beat him into the dirt. They had been honest in that, at least...they had left him the money. He hadn’t been too sure he would find it there.

  Perhaps they’d only done it so the police would not come after them, accusing them of theft, but even so, Nenzi felt a brief pulse of gratitude that they had left it.

  Pulling it out, still feeling that relief, he tosses the bundle to Wreg, who catches it easily and flips through the stack of marks. After he has, he frowns slightly, gazing up at the low ceiling as if thinking, or perhaps counting. Once he has, he shoves his hands into his own pocket, and pulls out another stack of bills. He tosses both of them back to the younger seer.

  “If it is your first time,” he says only. “You might need more.”

  Nenzi feels a flush of warmth. Half of it is from shock at the generosity of the gesture, the rest is embarrassment at the other’s words.

  “Thank you, brother. I have money at my uncle’s...I can pay you back. I know I still owe you for the inks...”

  “It is nothing. Pay me back when you are better.” Wreg grunted then, raising an eyebrow at him. “...You’d do me a kindness, actually, if you kept the money and listened to me now and then, as payment instead...”

  “Yes, brother, I will.”

  Clicking softly at this, Wreg folds his arms then, gauging his eyes.

  “You will stay off the street?” he says.

  “I vow it, yes.”

  Wreg grunts again. “Tell your uncle, and I’ll skin you, runt...I really will.”

  Nenzi shakes his head, gesturing no in seer. “I won’t tell him.”

  Wreg nods, smiling a little, as if in spite of himself.

  “All right,” he says. “Well, listen then...and look for the markers in my light. You can get to this place by alleys, so follow the way I show you. You know the little blue house, behind the general store run by those Jews?”

  Nenzi nods. “Yes. I know it.”

  “Behind there, there are trees. And behind that, a garden. Cross the fence on the other side of that garden, and you will find a row of smaller places...built together in a long row. It goes far back, with the shoemaker having his workshop and apartment on top. They are green and white...do you know this?”

  Nenzi nods again, picking up impressio
ns off the other’s light.

  “I have passed that way,” he says.

  “Third door down from the stairs,” Wreg says. “The blue door. Ask for Nina. Send her my regards...and tell her that I have not forgotten, and still intend to return that favor to her.” His eyes turn openly warning. “...And be polite, runt.”

  “I will.”

  “You had better. Or I’ll take that money out of you in ways you can’t imagine.”

  Nenzi meets his gaze, and nods again, opening his light enough that the other can feel that he hears him, and that he understands. “I will be polite.” He hesitates, then says it anyway. “Thank you, brother Wreg. I won’t forget this...”

  The older seer looks at him, his eyes once more holding a near amazement.

  Still, the pleasure in his smile is genuine, or feels it.

  “You should get the tar beaten out of you more often, runt,” he says, slapping his good shoulder affectionately. “It makes you much more agreeable...”

  “That is probably true,” he concedes.

  “And watch the inks, brother,” Wreg adds, as Nenzi turns back to the bed, picking up his boots and socks and carrying them with him to where he can sit to put them on. “...One of them digs their claws into that, and you’ll feel it, trust me. Tell them to take it easy...”

  “I will.”

  Even so, he is already buttoning the front of his shirt, casting around for his coat as he pulls the suspenders up over his shoulders. He sits on the edge of the cot, still running over the path Wreg has shown him in his light as shoves his feet into socks and then boots, lacing the latter with jerking pulls once he’s stomped his heel all the way in.

  He is out the door pretty much the instant he finishes and shoves the money, both his own and what Wreg gave him, into his pockets.

  Now, a half-hour later, which is as long as it’s taken him to cross town in the circuitous route Wreg mapped out for him through backyards and alleys, he finds his steps slowing before a low green building with an upstairs workshop. He scans the four doors which are painted white, then his eyes stop on the third door from the stairs, which is painted a sky blue. He touches his arm lightly where the new bandage covers it, feeling a ripple of nerves even as it occurs to him that he has scanned too deeply; they already know he is outside.