by Marc Secchia
Liars, I fumed. Twenty silver ukals could not purchase an honest woman among ulules. Was this not foolishness, fireside fables, and verbal flummery? As for Janos–why, I expected better of him.
I tugged my left ear, keenly regretting the incident six days past. Bright pink indeed, and worse afore eventide. Considering my reputation, that parakeet might just be the most expensive bird in Umarik history. How would I ever bring myself to grovel in the forecourt of Telmak Lodge? Whatever had possessed the Honoria to dream up such a grotesque form of apology–oh! I gritted my teeth. One guess: “Rubiny!”
I could strangle the wench! If only she weren’t so comely, so vivacious, so … everything!
A difficult trick, too, considering my fingers were frozen to the trace-handles. As usual, I had forgotten to pack my gennet-hide gloves and burnoose. I could no longer feel my nose and lips. I burrowed my chin into my collar, grumbling, “Ulim’s breath!” Bone-weary. Sick and cold. Those three days of revelry seemed a lifetime away. And they had not helped me forget Jyla. Not a jot.
Best to drag myself back to home and hearth. Stoke the fire, kick off my half-boots, mull a measure or two of that nutty Salkuri red wine I’d been hoarding, and count the spoils of my trip. The trader’s grephe must have been satisfied.
I slapped the foremost jatha irritably with the traces. “Ge’on, you!”
Janos would crow in delight. My ten percent I could offset against the cart’s repair, with plenty to spare. Ten whole Reals! That opened new vistas. For the first time, I would have solid capital to my name. Enough to lift me from the mire? I could not imagine farming herbs and vegetables all my life. Farming was regular, dependable, and dull. I was destined for greater things.
Knew I more of my destiny than other men? Nay. But I knew what I wanted–or at least, what I didn’t want. There were hardships graven upon the care-worn faces in the village, marks of a life and a future that frankly, frightened me. My parents’ murder had forced me to face my fears. Escape beckoned. And I had given it thought, oh sweet Mata, anna of thought. Schemes I counted by the bushel, and dreams by the cartload.
So what inhibited me still?
The sky spoke of a squall brewing. Given the blustering, ice-fingered wind, eventide had closed in fast and early. The narrow streets were deserted. The watch would have howled at my clattering haste, had they not slipped indoors makh ago.
Golden lanterns winked behind guarded shutters.
The blocky houses of Yarabi village were built from a pale sandstone, quarried locally, and fashioned with slate roof tiles and window-boxes brimming with gay bluebells, phuletips, and old-mother’s wisp. This dusk, the sodden sandstone seemed sallow and unwelcoming, rather than warm and homely. The flowers, blighted by the cold, drooped as though weeping at a sudden misfortune. The villagers were huddled indoors, enjoying hearth and fire, sipping their limmerwort tea or nibbling at those foul lurg nuts they held so dear.
I felt transient, surreal, a living intruder in a silent spirit-world, a moth fluttering against the windowpane of reality.
Beyond the village, my sense of isolation grew. Coniferous woods of brazen, stinge, and dwarf pine hemmed in the familiar track, providing sanctuary from the rising breeze. Low branches became unseen veils rustling against the cart’s sides. Though I must have driven this way a thousand times, this night I felt a thrill of apprehension that made me revel in a dangerous speed, the trees and branches whipping by, and at the sight of the first welcome lantern lighting the path to Sothi’s farm just ahead. Two more, then Janos’, and then mine a rabbit’s hop thereafter.
Nearly home.
The flat log bridge came as a shock of thunder, oily black waters flying by amidst a bruising rattletrap jouncing that well-nigh pitched me upon the hindmost jatha’s back. Wild laughter burbled from my lips.
I was scaring myself. Muttering between clenched teeth, I hauled the jatha back to a sensible pace for the climb to the bluff above the river. One had to be careful on the switchbacks or a nasty accident could ensue. I gathered the traces in my fists and leaned over the animals to deliver my commands.
With the ascent safely behind me, I let the cart rumble on past the turnoff for Farmer Lyat’s, with its lantern hanging from the familiar knotted pine, and hunkered down as best I could for the quarter makh or so it would take to reach Janos’ place. Usually, on this stretch, one could see his welcome lantern. I hunched deeper into my jerkin, beyond shivering now. O for the simple comforts …
Odd! Squinting against the wind’s bitter knife-edge, I made out one welcome lantern, but not two. Roymerians make a point of never letting the welcome lantern snuff out, even in the foulest weather. A lit lantern signifies friendship, peace, and hospitality. It says, ‘Be welcome at my hearth, be you friend or stranger.’
Perhaps he had forgotten to top up the oil?
Pressed argan oil brought by slow coastal lugger from the faraway city of MaraUdal in Damantia, I reminded myself, yielding profit of no less than eight ukals to the barrel. I had in my cart twenty barrels, which made … where was that accursed lantern? I marked it not. Mine always swung freely from a dwarf pine hard by my gate, buffeted by any breeze, whereas Janos’ stood firm upon the squat stump of an ulinbarb tree. The light out there swayed perceptibly.
I worried at a fingernail.
This was completely out of character. In Janos’ foundry, every tool had its place. The floor was swept each evening. He laid his table for dinner regardless of whether or not he had company. He sliced flatbread with short, definite strokes of his cutter, before spearing each square with the tine and raising it to his mouth with excruciating precision. Janos was a fastidious man, mark my words. Lanterns did not go out on his watch.
By the time I reached the turning, I had imagined a dozen mishaps that could have befallen him since my departure. My thumb bled freely. How to tell the difference between fear and a real grephe, I wondered? I turned the jatha with a low bark, telling myself that under the guise of sharing the good news, I should look in on him. Just … in case.
I checked the jatha and leaped down to check the lantern. Touched it. Still warm, I felt, and heard a sloshing of aromatic oil that indicated a good supply. It could not have blown out, for the shutter was latched shut, and the wick neatly trimmed. Of course. Pernickety Janos would have it no other way. I scratched my stubble. Then, why?
Suddenly, as if bitten by a torfly, I leaped after the still-moving cart and sprang up to the footrest. In one movement I scooped up the traces and hissed the jatha on.
I could smell the forge already, a distinctive blend of burnt umber and darkwood mixed with tangy alloys fired furnace-hot. Janos must be home, working. Doubly strange then the lantern had gone out …
Janos’ low, neat bungalow appeared dark and still, so I did not bother with the front door. Heaving the cart to a standstill, I flung the traces over the nearest staypole and rushed up the path past the kitchen, taking the familiar stone cut steps three at a time. The forge was built back into the hillside behind the house, in what must once have been a small cave for barkdeer or rock lynx. Both had been mercilessly hunted in the heyday of Yarabi village, but now they were slowly returning as large tracts of the valley floor fell back to their natural state.
Sight of the forge doors dashed these thoughts from my mind. The right stood ajar, the left was shut fast. Twice the height of a man, they dwarfed the slight figure that moved between them, backlit in orange flame by the open furnace.
She was as startled to see me, as I was to see her. Our exclamations sparred midway:
“Clear off, stranger!”
“Who are you?”
“Ah …” she hissed, and the syllable stuck a hot poker into my gullet. “The trader from the marketplace!”
Her! Jyla! A thousand thoughts, every last one of them ill, jammed into my head at once. I tried to push myself onward, to square my shoulders, but my boots seemed nailed to the top step. I rasped, “What are you doing here? Where’s Janos?”
“I might ask you the same question, boy,” she smiled coolly, “but I would rather thank you first.” Jyla made a half-buskal, a mocking perversion of the common gesture of appreciation. “For leading us hence–thank you.”
My hands knotted into fists.
“After all, our Janos has proved most elusive over the anna. And resourceful.” Her laughter tinkled as if tiny icicles were dropping to the ground. “That is, until you betrayed him. You have my … heartfelt gratitude.”
“Where is Janos?” My voice belonged to a stranger. “Where is he?”
“Such touching concern,” Jyla tittered. Her black-in-black eyes glittered like hideous diamonds, and her voice flicked in an instant from honey to iron. “Would you see your precious Janos? Tortha! Stop fooling about. Bring him out.”
There was a low moan that I mistook at first for the cry of poorly oiled hinges. But when Tortha banged the forge door open, the moaning soared into a raw, lingering scream. I have never since heard a living creature utter such a sound. I wish I never had. It tore an unspeakable wound in my innermost quoph.
I squinted against the forge’s brutal, shimmering heat. There was a figure nailed to the door. Great, thick iron nails at shoulder, hip, lower thigh, and left ankle, pinned a man cruelly to the heat-scarred wood. Blood crusted his torso. Where his nose had been lay a smoking ruin, a gaping sore in the flesh. His left ear hung by a thread. He had bitten through his lower lip. Only his eyes were familiar, grey as flint, and thus I knew him for Janos.
Tortha kicked the door. He shook it violently with both hands. Janos shrieked again and again as his body flopped about upon its pinions; Tortha’s perverse mirth spilled forth into the night.
The man roared, “Give greeting, Janos! Your apprentice is come.”
Despair creased Janos’ expression before he forced a smile–more a grimace–to his lips and sighed, “Arlak.” He mouthed, solûm tï mik, which means ‘son of my hearth’ in Dusky Fahric. An endearment, and a secret signal between us.
But before I could think upon it, Jyla said sharply, “Boy! Have you used nails before?”
“Nails?”
“Like this.” Suddenly, one of the thick iron nails floated in the air between us. “A simple tool,” she noted, studying my reaction, “and singularly effective, wouldn’t you agree? Once driven home, they are nigh impossible to extract.”
I had the impression this statement was meant for a test. I glanced at Janos for guidance, but he watched Jyla with neither malice nor anger, but with a quietude of spirit that given the situation, seemed utterly misplaced.
“Iron nails. Sharp enough to pierce flesh. Blunt enough to make it interesting.” Jyla raised her hand and the nail drifted through the air toward Janos. “Where shall I place this one? Your choice. Neck?”
The leaping forge flames made a brazen statue of her flawless features, as if she were chiselled of cold, unfeeling marble. “What about an eye? Left or right?” How could this be, I thought dully. A vine of such beauty; its fruit nought but evil? “Maybe his arm will suffice.”
Jyla flicked her fingers. The nail shot forward to impale Janos’ left wrist, and pinned it upright as if she had calculated to trap him in the act of asking a question.
Janos cried out, a thin and distant sound swallowed in the hot vomit spewing from my mouth; in my retching, gagging, and coughing; kneeling helplessly in the dirt, still heaving long after my stomach had nought left to expel. Then, by force of will, I staggered upright, shouting in my mind, ‘Surely no man alive can endure this agony?’ His wounds, his face … what could Jyla possibly want from him? I knew Janos kept secrets–but this? Unthinkable! Nothing, nothing could ever justify the torture of Mata’s own.
Warily, I faced up to Jyla across the several paces that separated us. My hand rose absently to wipe my mouth, but my eyes were frozen in their sockets. Was she a Sorceress? Only the Eldrik claimed such powers. I simply could not comprehend her presence, here, in this place I had visited uncountable times.
“What a shame you stumbled into this, you fool,” she said, casting her words like barbed hooks meant to impale. “You cannot possibly understand how important this man is to our cause, or what he has concealed over the anna. These are momentous events, beyond your ken.”
I wanted to brand her a madwoman, but there was no madness in her now. Cool, rational, her words seared the night. “At least you will die knowing that you have done the Eldrik the greatest service imaginable–indeed, the greatest service in the history of our people. They will proclaim you a hero; they’ll celebrate your name in song. Arlak the betrayer. Arlak, our saviour.” She raised her fingers, clawed into mystic forms, and such was her expression and demeanour that I swear I felt Nethe’s own claws squeeze my neck. “Now, mark my words, I will end this swiftly.”
“No!” Janos jerked against the nails. Fresh blood bubbled from his lips. By his suffering, he compelled our attention. He repeated, more weakly this time, “No. Have … pity …”
“Pity? When you had none?”
“What is done cannot be undone.”
Jyla spat, “Never!”
“The greatest magic cannot defeat this doom.”
“What do you know of magic, you worthless nothing?” she exploded. I cowered, half-expecting the vitriol in her tone to come spitting forth as real acid. “But your kind were there–ah yes, you were there, with Lucan, when he committed that vile offence! And you’ll tell me everything, Janos. Every tiny detail. I won’t let you die before you do, because that would be too easy. And you know I have the power.”
Janos rasped, “Do your worst, Myki Mahdros.”
I knew the reference–it was drawn from an ancient Umarite legend, wherein Myki the Snake cheated the Goddess Yuthe of the nectar of immortality, hoping to make himself one of the Gods. Imyni, the Goddess of Hunting, hunted Myki to the ends of the lands and shot him through the heart with one of her burning arrows, thus recovering the nectar. Some versions of the tale, though, claimed that Myki had two hearts and thus cheated death. Why he should mention it now was beyond me.
Jyla let an amused smile curve her lips upward. “Petty name-calling. Pathetic.” But that smile never touched her eyes. Not even close.
The effort appeared to drain Janos. He slumped upon his pinions, hanging as a dead thing from a rack.
“Of course, your protections are powerful, Janos, and it will take time to circumvent them. I’ll break you … eventually. But can I afford the time? The cost?”
Jyla’s black, dead gaze dismissed him and swivelled to fix on me. I broke off wondering about Janos, afeared now for my own flesh and blood. “But here we have young Arlak. Is he an opportunity granted by the Gods? Ah–” she snapped her fingers, “–I have it now. Yes. I’ll give you the choice.”
“Me?”
A squeak. Another time I would have cursed at the embarrassment, but the Sorceress had me in her thrall.
“You, Arlak. Now listen closely if you wish to save your friend. Here are your choices. You can fight Tortha. Beat him and you win Janos’ life. Or you can fight me. Beat me, and I’ll grant you mercy.”
Lunacy! I moistened my lips. “These are my choices?”
“Me or Tortha. Choose wisely.”
Suicide either way, or I was no judge. Tortha would crush me. He wore nought but a pair of thexik trousers; in the forge’s blaze, his massively muscled upper body gleamed like several pythons oiled and knotted together. Jyla, in her sorcerous pomp, would toy with me as a salcat toys with its luckless rodent dinner. “I can’t just … walk away?”
The smoulder in her expression made my attempted levity fall flat. I stalled, “What weapons–?”
“Bare hands!” Tortha broke in. “I’ll snap your arms and legs like twigs, little man. Then I’ll roast you slow, feet-first in the furnace while you writhe in agony, unable to pull yourself free. Now–choose!”
Choose? The horror! I glanced several times between my two tormentors, unable to decide, unable to
think, my head pounding fit to burst as I struggled to process what I had seen and heard. Crises have always brought out the worst in me. This was intolerable. The wrong choice would cost Janos his life–it would cost both our lives. Jyla or Tortha. There was no choice. I kept coming back to that. No choice. Janos had been my father when I had none. Now he was their trophy animal, pinned the forge door with nails driven through his body and … in my mind I screamed: No, no, NO! I can’t do it, I can’t decide, I can’t abide it any longer …
Then I bolted.
I was the wind unleashed. My long legs scissored across the ground. Instinct took me down the path past the outhouse, my arms pumping as they had never pumped before. The speed of my descent made the air whistle past my ears. A single, scared-rabbit bound took me over the vegetable patch and deep into the bushes beyond. I dodged through slashing branches onto the game trail I had explored so many times as a boy, relying on my agility, dancing a quicksilver trail between boulders as tall as my shoulders.
Action was better than thought, any action, or I would have burned away in that traumatic crucible. But fear soured my gratitude. I remembered Janos’ broken body. I could almost taste Tortha’s sick pleasure. I felt the condemnation of eyes as black as Nethe’s pit. Perhaps, if I ran fast enough and far enough, I would never have to see them again.
The wind carried Jyla’s high, shrill laughter to my ears. Triumphant.
Tortha I could not hear at all.
My boots drummed the hard-packed trail. Ahead I could dimly make out the olive grove that marked the end of Janos’ land and the start of the wilderness proper. Flee! Nothing else mattered. For a moment, as my flight lengthened, I let the glorious scent of freedom fill my nostrils.
He loomed as a boulder cloaked in darkness. With the flat of his hand, Tortha struck me spinning. My head exploded. In a trice the giant man had me pinned to the ground, breathless and dazed, and cheerfully whistled a tune through the gap in his front teeth as he trussed my limbs like a prize hog.
