Saga of Menyoral: Hard Luck

by Ray, M. A.

  “Well,” Krakus said, letting it all hang out. His gut slipped under the bottom edge of the breastplate. “Set it up with the armorer.”

  “Right away, Father.” Fillip left with unflattering haste, and Krakus followed on his heels. Lech was locking up the office.

  “Ready?”

  “Of course,” Lech said sourly.

  “All right, just making conversation.” Krakus pulled a face at Lech’s back as he swept by on his way to the stairs. Krakus clomped down after him, puffing.

  Fort Rule covered nine square miles of prime farmland, and the green plain rolled around it to the north and the west, as far as the eye could see, unbroken except for, now and then, a herd of black-and-white spotted cattle. At the southeast corner was the River Ennis, on its deep, swift way up to Dreamport and the ocean from its source in the South Wing of the Dragon’s Spine. Four sets of yellow sandstone walls, it had, each higher than the one outside it, each surrounded by the next, and all shining like butter in the afternoon sun. Between Section Four (Garrison) and Section Three (Commissars), there were many small gates and doors set into the walls; between Section Three and Section Two (Medical) there were only three; and a single high portal, only one, leading from Section Two into the deepest, central portion of the fort. Section One housed Fort Rule’s reason for being: the Special Units, every child of the Stone that the Order of Aurelius had been able to find.

  Section One would be the subject of the High Commissars’ inspection that afternoon. Immediately upon stepping into the sunshine, Krakus began to sweat. He pulled the white breastplate back down over his belly as they approached the gate: two massive, unornamented doors. The calls of the sentries rang out, and a loud clunk sounded as the thick bar on the other side of the gate slid away. The right-hand door pivoted slightly inward to admit Krakus and Lech.

  “Good afternoon, Fathers,” said First Sergeant Bill Matuchek.

  “Good afternoon, Vasily,” Lech said, in his soft voice.

  Krakus snapped him a nod, twiddling the ring on his right pinky. It hardly moved, which distressed Krakus in a vague sort of way. “Bill.”

  Matuchek’s eyes glowed briefly red, and he rose silently off the ground and drifted past the High Commissars. He looked like a handsome young man, but he was nearly as old as the two Aurelians. With the flick of one finger, he nudged the gate shut, and with another flick, sent the beam flying back into place. He turned back, sliding into a kind of midair parade rest. “Shall we, Fathers?”

  “Certainly.” Lech fell in with Matuchek—Krakus couldn’t say they fell into step, but they stayed even with each other. For his part, he trailed them. He’d rather watch the amazing things that happened every moment in Section One than listen to Matuchek’s monotone report. Far over at the north wall, some of the Special Units were at target practice, and thunderclaps echoed off the yellow sandstone as lightning shot from a boy’s fingers at another young man with what looked like a shimmering soap bubble extending from his body in all directions. The lightning impacted the bubble and diffused harmlessly over it, and so did the darts of flame from the fingertips of the next youth; his skin blazed red and his hair bright yellow.

  Krakus passed two utterly ordinary-looking little girls, closely watched by nurses, who directed small toy birds with the touches of their minds, making them fight in midair. “Try not to use your hands, Kara,” said one of them. “Down by your sides, now, that’s my girl.” Back and forth across the top of the gigantic yard, below the level of the walls, men and women in black uniforms chased and flew. Every so often, some of them stopped to hover and coach two little boys, one with translucent, insectile wings and another with the black-and-white span of a falcon.

  The rain of two nights ago had dried under a day of hot sun. Now the group of Special Units running through sword drill kicked up plumes of fine yellow dust as they practiced footwork, knocked clouds of sawdust particles from the training dummies as they worked on strikes. It reminded Krakus of the novice days in the cloister outside Muscoda City, training strength into his arms while Lech trained knowledge into his mind, being a little boy concerned with nothing more—or less—important than his next meal.

  Of course, Krakus usually wasn’t concerned with anything more now, either, but he really had to work at it. All these kids…well, they were mostly kids, and the ones that weren’t had lived their whole lives in those barracks on the north side of Section One—Bill Matuchek most of all. Lech wanted more, and Prince Vlad wanted more—which meant King Kasimir wanted more, too—but Krakus wondered if they didn’t have enough already. Some of these kids were pretty terrifying, even if he didn’t count Bill. They came in all sizes and every color of the rainbow, all shapes and every flavor, and he wanted to be afraid of them, but he couldn’t, not even if they glowed or sparkled or blasted lightning from their fingertips. Krakus had looked into their eyes and seen them for what they were: kids, far from home and scared, no matter what they could do.

  He sucked in his gut, watching the biggest kid he'd ever seen in his life try to manage a practice sword meant for a normal-sized man, and adjusted his breastplate again; all right, definitely time for a new one. The big kid raised a hand covered in thick-looking, brown hide. The sword seemed like a toy in that hand, and when the boy struck, both dummy and practice sword exploded, flinging splinters that made the others around him duck and cover.

  “Jablonsky!” Bill snapped. “You incompetent numbnuts! Clean that up! The rest of you—back to work!”

  Lech and Bill continued on. Krakus stayed where he was while the unfortunate Jablonsky went heavily to the edge of the square and picked up a broom already lying there. Everything’s too small for him, Krakus thought, tugging at his breastplate yet again. He makes that broom look like a twig. Jablonsky was well over seven feet tall. He was covered all over with that brown hide, and on the brow of his big, kid-proportioned head, two tiny ends of cream-yellow horn poked out. If they were going to make someone that size live his entire life crammed inside two square miles with a hundred others, the least they could do was play to his strengths, give him something he’d be good at, Bright Lady’s sake.

  “Get that kid an axe,” Krakus said, loudly, to make himself heard over the noise.

  “Excuse me?” Lech said, forcefully polite. He’d interrupted them—so what?

  “I’m talking to Matuchek. Get that kid an axe,” he repeated.

  Bill made a face like Krakus had said something supremely moronic, and Krakus felt like hitting him with the ring hand, so he’d feel it. “In time he may progress to another weapon,” Bill said, “but first he must master the sword.”

  “Get him an axe. He can’t master anything too small for his hands. Get him the biggest damn axe you’ve got, then you’ll see what he can do!”

  Bill swelled, but Lech said quietly, “You know you must do as Father Krakus tells you, Vasily.” There was more threat in his words than Krakus could have mustered with all the red-faced screaming in the world.

  Conspicuously, he twiddled his ring again, the ring on his right pinky. Matuchek’s eyes glowed again, and his face twisted.

  Krakus’s ring was a gruesome thing, despite its beauty: gold, with the thinnest borders of platinum around the opalescent band in the center. Fairies, he’d been told, fairies made up that band. It was fairies, their tiny bodies ground alive in a mortar before the making of the Stone, and fixed there with the thinnest layer of shellac. It had been all but useless before the Stone, so said its last wearer, old Father Vaclav, with his last labored breath, but now, it was the only weapon Bill Matuchek respected, the only thing he feared. The long-dead dust called to the magic that surged through his blood.

  Using it felt unpleasant. Always, when Krakus brought it close to Bill, the thing fluttered uneasily on his finger like a caught butterfly. He tried not to do it very often, but sometimes Bill needed it, or at least the threat of it, to keep in line.

  Bill didn’t speak another word to Krakus. Instead, as soo
n as the glow faded from his eyes, he folded his arms and zipped smoothly across the training yard to Captain Dubrensky, the Armory Master, and one of the few regulars allowed contact with the Special Units. His body hardly wavered from its perfect perpendicular to the ground, except when he rocked gently to a stop and began speaking to Dubrensky. After a moment, Dubrensky motioned to his assistant.

  Krakus watched. He didn’t trust Bill for an instant. If he left without seeing the axe in that kid’s hands, the kid wouldn’t get it, of that he felt sure. Bill zipped back over, still glaring. “Father Krakus, I must respectfully request that you not interfere in the training of Special Units.”

  “And I’ve got to tell you,” Krakus said, “that it’s my job, and I’ll do what I see fit, and that kid needs an axe. Are you done yet, Lech?” He wanted to get out of this damn breastplate, and probably have someone in to measure him for the seventh one. To his surprise, Lech gave a slow nod. Together, the two Prelates turned and headed out of the gates toward Section Three. Krakus looked over his shoulder and saw Jablonsky, holding an axe across two huge hands like it was treasure and looking at Krakus out of big, brown cow’s eyes. Krakus sent him a little salute, and he snapped to return it. Well, Krakus thought, did something today, at least.

  Vandis

  Wealaia

  Dingus woke up aching. He rolled stiffly from side to back and gazed up at the perfect blue sky for a moment. Then he thought: Oh shit! Ass is gonna peck my fingers half off! The chickens didn’t like getting fed late, no-how. He sat up and fell right down again, moaning hoarsely at the hot red spear in his ribs. When he clutched at it, he found bandages, but no shirt. His head spun like a maple seed on its way to the ground. It was nothing new—he’d have to be careful the next few days. Then he remembered last night.

  He wished he didn’t. He pressed the heels of his hands into his stinging eyes, even though they felt bruised, and tried to breathe through his nose. It was too plugged up. How he got out of it, he couldn’t even imagine. All he remembered was suffocating in the middle of the mob, and strangling with the rope around his neck.

  “Take it easy, kid,” said a gravelly voice off to his right, but he couldn’t sit up and look. He was too busy hurting, inside and out. The sound of footsteps came closer and closer, until they stopped right next to him. Cloth rustled. “Come on, let’s get you sitting. I’ll—”

  “No!” Dingus cried, jerking away from the fingers that brushed his shoulder, but he’d moved too quick; he plain screamed, no words.

  “Shit,” whoever it was muttered. A sigh came after, and more movement toward Dingus. “Listen. I swear I will not hurt you in any way. I want you to open your eyes and look at me. Okay?”

  Dingus breathed. “Okay,” he said, getting his control back. He opened his eyes and stared. It was a human crouched next to him, a real human man, and he hadn’t seen one since he was ten. The human held out a bright blue hanky.

  “Now I want you to sit up and blow your nose. Carefully.”

  He shouldn’t have kept staring, but the man looked interesting. His face reminded Dingus of a hawk, with a big hooked nose and wide eyes under his bushy eyebrows. He had graying dark hair a little too long to be neat.

  “Come on. Don’t freak out again! Just take the hanky.”

  Dingus reached out and took it. Then he sat up—very carefully—and blew his nose, also very carefully, because it hurt like hell. When he finished, he tried to give it back, but the man held up his hand. “Keep it.”

  Dingus remembered to look at the ground. “Thank you,” he said, as politely as he could manage, even though it came out something like “Thagyoo.” The man’s hand flashed in his peripheral vision, and for a moment Dingus thought he was going to get a smack, but it never fell.

  “I’m Vandis,” the man said. “And you’re Dingus Xavier.”

  “Yes, sir.” How’d you know? he wanted to ask.

  “Okay, two things, right at the jump,” Vandis said. “One. Do not ‘sir’ me. My name is Vandis. You will call me Vandis. Two. The ground will not speak to you, and you will not speak to the ground. You will look at me while we are talking. Are we clear?”

  Dingus lifted his chin. “Yes—Vandis,” he said.

  The man’s face was all business. “Your dad’s name is Angus.”

  “They tell me so.” Not that I’d know.

  “You’re sixteen years old. Yesterday, you hammered on a kid named Aust.” Dingus opened his mouth to ask how the stranger knew it all, but Vandis kept talking. “And he’s been begging you for it for years.”

  A smile tried to crawl onto Dingus’s sore face. “Yes, Vandis,” he said, his lips twitching, “but how’d you know?”

  “A little birdie chirped it into my ear,” Vandis said with a shrug. “Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to answer some questions of mine, and then I’ll try to answer yours. Deal?” He stuck out his wide hand.

  Dingus clasped wrists with him. “Deal.”

  “First question: where were you going?”

  “Huh?”

  “You were carrying some kit with you.” Vandis pointed at Dingus’s satchel. “I took the liberty of packing it up, this once. You were running, so where were you planning to run?”

  He managed a tiny waggle of his shoulders. “Away. Maybe Elwin’s Ford, ‘cause I thought—maybe—” He stopped. He’d never told this to anyone out loud, only Moira, and he didn’t really want to start with a stranger.

  “What did you think?” There was a listening look on the man’s face, like he honestly did want to know, and Dingus couldn’t help himself.

  “I thought I could work in the way station.”

  “Work in the way station,” the man repeated, slow. “You don’t want to be a Knight of the Air?”

  “I’m too old.” He used to want that, but by the time he turned thirteen, his prospects looked pretty dim, and by the time his fourteenth birthday rolled around, he knew it was too late.

  Vandis opened his mouth, then shut it. “Hmm.” He straightened up. “Do you know how to build a fire?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “You’d be surprised.” Vandis laughed. “Do you know how to do it safely?”

  “You need rocks around it, or a pit. I do both, and rocks in the pit too. Just in case.”

  Vandis nodded. “Hmm. Okay. Which way is north?”

  “That way.”

  “Can you read?”

  “Mostly.”

  “What’s the number of your fingers times the leaves on poison ivy plus six?”

  “Thirty.”

  “Wrong on that one,” Vandis said triumphantly. “It’s thirty-six.”

  “Thumbs ain’t fingers, and I ain’t as dumb as I look,” Dingus blurted. Stupid! He waited to get hit, but Vandis only laughed. Maybe it was Dingus’s imagination but he looked pretty pleased.

  “You’ve got me there, on both counts, but how can you ‘mostly’ read? That’s something you can do or you can’t do, right?”

  “Oh, well, I can read Traders’ fine. My grandma taught me. She tried to teach me reading hituleti, on account of that’s what we speak at home, but there’s so many, whaddayacallems? Characters. It trips me up.”

  “So there isn’t any ‘mostly’ about it, is there? You read Traders’ well and hituleti poorly.”

  “Yes, Vandis.”

  “You’re already ahead of almost everyone, then. Here’s another question: can you write?”

  “Oh, I—” Dingus stopped. He wished he hadn’t said nothing about reading, ’cause he wasn’t supposed to be able to. It was against the law, and even more against the law, if that was possible, for him to write, but Vandis made him want to talk.

  “It’s okay. Tell me what you know how to do.”

  “I’m not supposed to.”

  “I didn’t ask that. I asked if you could.”

  “I’ll show you if you want,” he said, giving in, “but—”

  “It’s not going to come back on y
ou. You have my word.”

  Dingus reached down and wrote carefully in the dirt in front of him, his name: Dingus Parsifal Xavier.

  “Tell me you go by something else.”

  “Just Dingus.”

  Vandis gave a kind of shudder with his voice: “Ugh. Okay. Write again for me. ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.’”

  “How come?” he blurted, and waited again to get hit. Asking that of anybody but his grandparents always got him in trouble, but Vandis didn’t do what Dingus expected. He answered.

  “I want to know if you can write more than your name.”

  Dingus wrote it. Vandis nodded and handed him his tunic; it was ripped some, and had blood on it, but he put it on anyway. “You can’t spell worth a wet fart, but you’ll learn. One more question, the most important one: can you hunt? The answer you gave me about building a fire makes me think you can.”

  “Hunting, that’s easy. My grandpa taught me when I was so high.” He held his hand about three feet from the ground. “I can—” He stopped again. Bragging got him hit, too.

  “Tell me.”

  “I can follow a buck over four miles of rocky ground and bring him home for supper,” Dingus said, all in a rush.

  Vandis grinned, big and broadly. His hard face didn’t look right for smiling, but when he did it was pretty good. He leaned down and stuck out his hand, and when Dingus took his wrist again, he said, “Congratulations. You’re a Squire.” He showed Dingus the little tattoo of the leaf on his right hand.

  “What?” Dingus’s heart fluttered up like a startled bird. “You serious?”

  “Do you think you can walk?”

  “I done it hurt worse.”

  “I’ve done it with worse injuries.”

  “You’re a Knight!” Dingus said. “You’re a Knight of the Air! I bet you did!”

  “I wasn’t saying I have. I was telling you how to say what you said, but better. ‘I done it hurt worse’ is incorrect.”

  “Oh.”