by Stephen Wolf
Gabrion tossed aside the thought that Cavall was a guard in disguise, because there was no real sense in him remaining there for so long. He wondered if one day Cavall would be offered such a position for his work keeping the others in line, but then he realized that Cavall would never accept such an offer. When left to his own devices, his life had fallen apart. At least here, he had a modicum of control and power while the temptations of the world around him were kept acutely away.
It took just over two weeks of intense work for Kitalla to really come to her senses but another week before she had the strength to move on her own. She was surly all the time and distrustful of everything around her, her companions included.
“Back away, mage!” she hissed one day as Dariak offered her an herbal tea. “You’re just as likely to poison me as kill me.”
“Or heal you,” he retorted, setting the mug aside for her to drink later.
“Likely, I’m sure!” she spat. “You’ve kept me in darkness long enough already. Who’s to say you’re not holding me for some other purpose? A victim for your experiments? To find out which of your concoctions can kill me without being detected? A fine ploy that would be. I’m trapped in here like any lost puppy. Can barely even move, and it’s all because of you, I swear it!”
He knew based on her injuries that her fury was more directed at Grenthar, but her words stung anyway. It was all Dariak could do to clutch his hands into fists and keep his mouth closed.
But she wasn’t finished. “Your quaint little ideals to save the world.” She quivered for a moment, then pulled herself together. “You can’t do it. You’ll just get all that power and then turn on us and kill us all while we sleep or wake; it won’t matter. You won’t know what to do with that power when it comes to you. You’ll annihilate us all! Damn you for keeping up this pretense of peace. Curse you for your stupid quest!”
The mage trembled, fighting to keep himself composed. At these times, Gabrion would sometimes step in and find a means of calming the enraged thief, but this time even his attempts were futile. When he approached her, she threw her mug at him, catching him painfully in the chest.
“And you,” she shouted. “All to save your beloved Mira. You’d go to any lengths, wouldn’t you? Even teaming up with a maniacal wizard seeking to destroy the world! You would use his power just to save your precious little cherub. And yet here you are, just whiling away the hours in darkness, instead of being a real man and going off to fight for the woman you love. What kind of protector are you, sitting here and twiddling your thumbs? Admit it, you coward! You’re too afraid to fight for her!”
“That’s enough!” Gabrion bellowed, his face beet red and his veins pulsing noticeably. “You leave Mira out of this!” He couldn’t take it anymore. He thundered across the floor and escaped into one of the passages.
“Ha, he runs again!” Kitalla shouted after him. She laughed and snarled, then whipped her gaze around at Dariak. “As for you…”
He drew a deep breath and waited for the next portion of the tirade. It went on for some time while she belittled his sexual orientation and interest in Randler and then criticized his expertise as a mage, as well as doubted that his father had anything at all to do with the Red Jade they were seeking. He bore it all, trying desperately not to internalize anything she screamed. Humming random tunes in his head sometimes helped, but she usually started throwing things when she didn’t feel he was paying attention to her ranting.
Eventually, Kitalla grew weary, and her body collapsed in sleep. As always, Dariak took the first few minutes to calm himself, and then he turned his energies around to cast the next set of healing spells. It was harder this time because Randler was out and Gabrion had stormed off, but he still felt he was making progress. Though Kitalla was physically capable of walking on her own now, the process greatly weakened her, so she usually kept off her feet, venting her rage verbally until the rest of her body gave way. It would take a little longer for her to be strong enough to move for any length of time, but he knew he would have to fight against her tirades and heal her if she was ever going to get there.
Randler returned sometime in the midmorning and, sensing Dariak’s mood, immediately started whistling a merry tune and acting goofy to break the tension. It took some time, but eventually the mage grinned and sighed, turning to Randler for a much-needed embrace.
Gabrion walked in while the two were locked together. He averted his eyes and set himself on the floor near his things. He fidgeted with Mira’s ring, wondering if he would ever be able to bring it to her or if he would bury it in her grave, assuming he could find it. Time was ticking by, and with each passing day, he felt Mira was slipping from his grasp ever so slowly. When he was stuck in the Prisoner’s Tower, he had given up hope that she would still be alive after all the time that had passed. Reclaiming her ring had instilled a new hope, but the shadow lingered within him, and returning to the tower only darkened his heart. Perhaps Kitalla was correct. Maybe he was a coward, too afraid to face reality. He would never win Mira back.
Dariak was crouching in front of him, and he hadn’t even noticed. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s just been through a lot, and she’s taking it out on us because we’re here.”
Gabrion wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Easy for you to say.”
“It isn’t, Gabrion. Really.” Dariak sat beside the warrior and looked over at Kitalla, who was sound asleep but clearly hurting. “We always knew she was astute. How else could she learn so much from a short tromp through town? But the things she says really cut to the heart. Maybe she just senses on our own doubts and throws them at us like daggers.”
“At the same time,” Gabrion said slowly, “she’s right. I haven’t pursued Mira directly. And saying I’m not strong enough is just a fancy way of not being brave. Look at the fights I’ve already gotten through, including breaking us both out of prison and her from her torture. So why am I still sitting here?”
“Because we’re stronger together,” Dariak said simply. “We just need to get her on her feet again.”
Gabrion turned to look at Dariak closely. “You don’t think Mira’s still alive, do you?”
Dariak hesitated for too long.
“I see.” The warrior’s head hung low.
“No, Gabrion, she is still alive,” the mage said in an attempt to comfort him. “I think you’d know otherwise.”
Gabrion shook his head in denial. “Doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it does,” Dariak insisted, grasping onto the chance for something positive after Kitalla’s recent bashing. “We’re all connected by the energies around us. We feel one another when we’re close. We know inside what’s going on with the people we care about the most. If it wasn’t that way, magic couldn’t work. We wouldn’t be able to pull and push the energies to our will. If people didn’t connect to them, magic wouldn’t exist.”
“You’re reaching,” Gabrion accused, stretching out onto his back and covering his face.
“I’m not,” Dariak insisted. “Think of the jades themselves. They call out to one another, don’t they? They resonate when they’re near. They find ways of coming together when they’re not; you said as much yourself with your jade in the tower. We’re the same—people, that is. We resonate. We call out to one another. I think you call out to Mira because she calls out to you. It’s as simple as that. So that means she has to still be alive, Gabrion. Or else you would know.”
Gabrion was quiet for a time. “Like you and your minstrel, I guess.”
Dariak blushed, turning to look across the large chamber at Randler, who was busying himself cooking a stew for them, nonchalantly unaware of their conversation. “I guess it is. So strange…” He sighed and let his voice drift oddly silent. He struggled not to look at Gabrion.
It took a moment, but then Gabrion asked, “What’s so strange?”
“It’s str
ange that I’d find a bunch of Kallisorians that I can’t imagine my life without.”
It was a sweet sentiment that wasn’t lost on the upset warrior. And Gabrion knew that Dariak meant it. He pulled himself together and reconsidered Dariak’s words about Mira, wondering if the mage could be right after all. Perhaps he still called for her because she was still alive. He looked up at the mage, whose blue eyes had turned toward Kitalla in sadness.
“Well,” Gabrion said, sitting up. “Don’t think being all nice like that means I’m taking my pants off for you.” He patted Dariak on the back and stood up to help Randler with the stew.
Dariak grinned. “Too bad. I’ll have to try harder next time.”
Being locked in a stone cell by choice didn’t feel much different than being locked in by force. Still, Dariak and Gabrion made the best they could of the situation, comforting each other when Kitalla’s rages were particularly vicious and combining their efforts to heal her. She was getting markedly better, they noticed, and soon she was on her feet regularly, walking around and stretching, wondering when they’d get out in the world and slaughter anyone who crossed their path. Her feisty moments often turned against them, but regardless, they ended with Kitalla crashing to the ground in a heap, too tired to move.
Along the way, Randler stayed true to the group, always bringing new supplies and stories of the events in the city. Pindington was the easternmost settlement of the kingdom, farthest from the king himself, and even though it was a trading port with other countries across the ocean, word from within the land itself sometimes took its time reaching Pindington. One afternoon, the bard came in with tidings he wished he didn’t have to share.
“The king has called for war,” he said sadly.
Gabrion’s back straightened immediately. “What have you heard?”
“The attack on your village was verified by the king’s soldiers, but he did nothing until other places were similarly attacked. When it was indisputable that the king of Hathreneir was on the offensive, at last our king decided to bulk up the defenses.”
“We should just wait it out,” Kitalla offered. “Then go in for some easy looting.” She was rocking back and forth anxiously, staring vacantly.
“War just leads to death,” Dariak argued. “There has to be a way to compromise between the two. Stop all of this.”
“That’s a path that hasn’t worked in centuries,” Randler said mysteriously.
“Fine then, let’s go out and kill them all,” Kitalla said with an odd look in her eyes. She grinned, and then she groaned, shaking her head. “Ugh! Enough of this! I sound like Heria. I shouldn’t listen to tidings of war.”
“We can’t stay here indefinitely,” Gabrion chimed in. “I miss the sunlight, to be honest.”
“Happy farmers!” Kitalla declared. “We’ll all go be happy farmers!” She glanced at the strange reactions of the others and realized she was speaking nonsense again. It was a difficult transition for her, returning to life from the brink of darkness. Grenthar’s punishments had pushed her beyond pain any mortal should ever have to endure, and just when she had thought she could take no more, she had been set upon his tortures again and worse. Sheer determination had driven her through the torments, shoving aside all rational thought of just letting herself die and ending the misery.
Even the stone slab shattering her arm hadn’t been the end of her trials. She had fought through numerous other horrors after that, and no one had come to save her, not even herself. Deep inside, something else resonated, some distant memory, but she refused to dwell on it.
After everything, when Gabrion had taken her from the cell and brought her from the pain, it didn’t register as real. The healings she had received were nothing more than preparations for the next series of vicious traps she would have to face, and she had endured so much pain that seeing her companions made her feel more like she was imagining them than anything else, so lashing out was easier than accepting them.
Time had marched on, however, and the companions had remained, and the tortures had ended. She didn’t fully trust it, but she was trying. Her nonsensical outbursts irritated her, but she had to admit that they were better than her impulses to hideously murder these people who had saved her.
“If any time called for the power of the jades,” Dariak was saying, “it is now. We need to assemble the rest of the pieces and find a way of using them to stop the war.”
Kitalla struggled to focus on the conversation, fighting off the lingering pain and memories. “Does anyone even know how many pieces of jade there are?”
“Very few made their way into Hathreneir,” Dariak replied. “One went to me, two others to mage towers for study, and a fourth to the new king.”
“So how many remained in Kallisor?” asked Gabrion.
Dariak hesitated for a moment, but then Randler answered, “Seven.”
The mage looked up at the bard. “How could you possibly know that?”
Randler hedged but then shrugged. “It’s my duty to know the lore of the land, as obscure as it can be sometimes. I hear things, I put them together, and I pull out the truth from the stories. Simple as that.”
Gabrion wasn’t satisfied. “Out with it.”
Kitalla didn’t do well with the angry tone in Gabrion’s voice. She immediately twitched and reached for daggers that were no longer in her possession. Dariak had long since removed them after one of her tirades, during which she’d sent a few in his direction. Finding no weapons to pull forth, Kitalla growled and hopped onto her fists, as if ready to pounce on Randler.
He held up a placating hand and kept the fierce woman at bay. “Now, now,” he crooned. “Settle down, and hear me out. It will all fall into place, all right?”
It took a few moments of hissing and seething before Kitalla calmed herself. They ignored her irrational outbursts, because they were becoming fewer and fewer with each round of healing, but they bothered her, and so she slid back from the rest, folding her arms onto her knees and pressing her head down to steady herself.
All eyes swept to the bard as he began his tale. “Long ago, my grandfather was part of the king’s army. He served His Majesty as a general and trained the troops to fight alongside their liege under all conditions. He kept them well trained, even in the times when battles were few, because, as we all know, war is always imminent with loathsome Hathreneir.”
Dariak cleared his throat at the description of his home, but Randler placated him with a knowing look. “I was very young when the last war took place, but I remember being fascinated by the stories my grandfather would tell.”
His voice took on a grand, almost godly tone, as he continued. “And in walked the colossus of light, sweeping its massive arms and sending our troops into total despair. Simple as that, one brush of a hand, and men and women went sailing through the misty blue sky, never to be heard from again. The giant was unstoppable. Invincible to every attack, no matter how skilled the fighter.”
The others nodded their heads, for their own knowledge of the war meshed. Randler continued. “He was a great storyteller, my grandfather, and it prompted me to take up this profession. We would talk for hours, and he would have me tell back the stories he’d told me, ensuring I could keep the details straight every time. Even though he was a soldier himself, he always felt that accurate storytelling was a better skill to have, for a good orator could uncloud the minds of the people. My mother didn’t agree.
“No, Ma-ma wanted me to take up her mantle and secretly study the arcane and forbidden arts of sorcery.” He looked to Dariak with a sad frown. “But I wanted nothing to do with magic, ever. She would insist on sitting me down with large tomes to study, and though I would repeat the words and flourishes, I never tried to pull the energies, despite what I told her.”
“So then,” Gabrion interrupted, “you do have some training as a mage, after all.”
&n
bsp; “Not much more than watching a fight would train me to be a brawler. I could mimic the moves, but that was all. At some point Ma-ma wanted nothing much to do with me, which freed me up to spend more time with my grandfather, telling stories. They never much got along, those two, but he was my father’s father anyway. He eventually took ill and died, but I owe my skills to him.”
“What of the music?” Kitalla ventured softly from her perch, trying to focus on the conversation and keep calm.
Randler smiled. “My father was more the entertainer. He was part of a dance troupe, in which my sister also trained. I used to watch the performances and hum along with the music, and one birthday, my father put a lute in my hands to see what I could do. Pretty straightforward from there. After my grandfather and father died, I traveled with the dance troupe as one of the musicians and eventually ventured off on my own.”
Gabrion waited for more, but there was a long pause. “That doesn’t explain anything about the jade.”
The bard looked like he wasn’t going to divulge any more, but then he stretched and sighed and continued his tale. “Truth is, my mother never appreciated my father’s line of work, which was why she delved into the arcane arts as a second means of income and security for herself. She knew it was dangerous, but she felt poverty was an even greater danger. My father died before the war, and she plied her craft to keep the family going. When my grandfather returned from the war, badly injured I might add, he brought with him a piece of the jade. He said he had intended it for me, but she felt its energies easily enough, and he handed it over, almost as payment for his residence with us.”
“She sounds tough,” Dariak commented.
