Half-Breed

by Anna L. Walls

  “Four hundred gold pieces; that’s a lot of money,” said one of the men in disbelief. He eyed the wolf that had seemed to go very still, though she hadn’t been very mobile before.

  “Yes,” said Canis. He wanted to pay Patro back for the last two years he had already paid for. He also wanted to pay for his lessons coming up and the next year’s lessons himself. Only when he had no debt to Slave Master Patro would he feel truly free. Then again, he wondered about Dagon. Surely, he was aware that only slaves fight in the arena. Why then was he training me to that end?

  “Listen kid, I’m sure we’ll find something you can do to earn some money, but four hundred gold is a lot. We’ll do what we can to drum something up for you, though. We all probably owe you our lives. We owe it to you to do what we can.”

  “Sure thing, kid, we’ll find something for you,” said another.

  Canis nodded and turned away. He could ask no more from these men, but he had learned something here tonight. He would need to be on his guard now. No one would put chains on him again. Never again would someone lay a slave whip across his back. Never again would he look out at the world from behind bars.

  Rrusharr’s soft agreement hummed through his mind as they disappeared into the dark alley.

  The Blessing

  The constables came through for Canis about a month later. There was an influential merchant in the city. There were many actually, but influential people have enemies and this merchant had a daughter. Apparently, someone had kidnapped his daughter and the constables couldn’t find her or her kidnappers. They thought of Canis, or more accurately, they thought of Rrusharr, though they didn’t know her name.

  The three of them came to the school and asked for Canis. When he came out of the class to meet them, one of them said, “We might have a job for you. Master Hale’s daughter has been kidnapped and we are having some trouble finding her. We thought you might be able to help. Would you come with us to speak with him?”

  “Yes,” said Canis and he left with them without even a glance over his shoulder at Leonard who watched him from the classroom. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going. He was responsible for himself. He was a free man.

  The merchant’s house might have been smaller than the school, but it was grander by a long stretch. The inside was polished and gleamed with both silver and gold gilding. The many tall windows let in the sunlight through their sheer silk curtains.

  One of the constables introduced him. “Master Hale, this is Canis, he’s…pretty talented. We think it might be worth your money to hire him to find your daughter.”

  “Why would I want to hire a boy? Are you telling me you are giving up on my daughter?” said Hale incredulously.

  “Sir, we don’t have any leads,” said another of the men.

  Canis stepped forward. “Sir, I do not ask for pay if I am not successful. You will pay me only if I can bring her back to you.”

  “Is that so? And just how much money do you expect me to pay you, boy?” asked Hale insolently.

  “What is your daughter worth to you?” asked Canis.

  Rrusharr moved closer. She didn’t like this man.

  Neither did Canis, but if he paid, he would find the man’s daughter for him.

  “What? What is that doing in my house?” cried Hale in alarm.

  “This is Rrusharr. She will help me find your daughter, but if you are not interested, then we will be on our way.” Canis turned and started to leave, but one of the constables snagged his arm.

  “Master Hale, reconsider. There has been no ransom demand,” he said. “We don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

  Canis cast a sharp glance at the man holding his arm.

  Hale gave way. “Very well. I will pay you one piece of gold if you can find my daughter and return her to me.”

  Canis turned his eyes of ice back to the merchant. “I would think your daughter is worth more to you than one gold coin, but since I am young, I will accept your offer. May I see her room?” said Canis.

  From the contents of her room and her clothes Canis could tell that the girl was only a small child. Smelling her pillow gave him a scent, but the room as a whole struck him as rather odd. As he wandered through the house in search of how she had been removed, he could find no other sign of her presence. He did, however, locate the window where she had been taken from the house and he followed.

  The trail vanished soon after reaching the street, but that didn’t deter Canis. He was on the hunt and he was good at hunting.

  Canis methodically combed the city and found the girl on the evening of the fourth day of his search. He also found that she was not a prisoner here. The fact that her scent and her mother’s scent spoke of mother and daughter told him that she had every right to be here.

  What was he to do? Both the girl and her mother were better off where they were, but if he didn’t return the girl to her father, he wouldn’t get paid and if he gave up his first hunt, it wasn’t likely he would get another. He knocked at the door.

  When the woman opened the door, Canis said, “Ma’am, I was hired by Master Hale to find and retrieve his daughter. I have found her, but now I have a problem. Your daughter belongs here, but if I do not take her back I will not get paid, and I need to make some money to pay back a debt.”

  The woman was surprised to see such a young boy at her door, especially with the announcement he gave her, but she could tell that he’d not lied. The fact that he laid his entire dilemma at her feet was another surprise. “Hale hired you? I wonder why. I’m surprised he didn’t have the guards combing the streets for us.”

  “He did. How many I am not sure. They could not find you, so friends of mine thought of me, or perhaps they thought my companion might be able to do what they could not.”

  Rrusharr stepped into the light from the door and the woman took a step back in alarm.

  “We are not a danger to your family, and I will not force your daughter to go with me, but perhaps you should consider, that if I could find you, Master Hale might be able to find someone else who can find you too.”

  “It is my greatest fear.” She stood aside, clearing the door. “Come in, it’s late. Supper is nearly ready and we can talk about this.”

  As she set about finishing supper and setting it on the table, she did some thinking. In the end, she came up with a workable solution to his dilemma. “Here is what you can do; return Dora to her father, get his gold, then take her again when you leave. If you can do that, I would give you four gold pieces. It’s all I have of my own gold. I simply couldn’t dip into my new husband’s gold for something like this. It wouldn’t be right.”

  Canis gazed at the anxious woman while the girl, Dora, caressed Rrusharr’s silky whiskers, which sent shivers across Canis’s shoulders causing Rrusharr to chuckle softly in his mind at his discomfiture. He heaved a big sigh. “We will try it,” said Canis.

  Dora looked at him with wide, very blue eyes. “I don’t want to go back there,” she said.

  “I do not want to take you back there, but I was hired to find you and I have,” said Canis. “I have also accepted the contract to return you back here, so I will do that too, if you will trust me to do so.”

  “Oh…well…okay,” said Dora in a small voice.

  Before she would allow them to leave, Dora’s mother invited him to pray to the Mother with her and her daughter for his success. He followed them to a small room and gazed at the little white statue in its center. “What is this?” he asked.

  The woman stepped up beside him. “This is our shrine to the Mother. Have you never seen one?”

  “No.” He had never heard of a shrine and she had said the mother, not a mother, or even her mother. “Who is this Mother?”

  The woman gestured a graceful hand toward the small statue. “She is the Mother. She is the Mother of everything, every plant, every animal; She brings the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter. Everything around us is woven into Her tapestry.” />
  Canis looked at the woman beside him and felt a shiver run down his spine. “Why is she here in your house?”

  The woman smiled, she saw fear flash briefly across his eyes. “She is here to remind us that She watches over us all the time. We keep a shrine here so we can worship Her whenever we feel the need. Many houses have a shrine much like this one in it.”

  Canis looked back at the small statue. “You use words I have never heard before. I find it difficult to understand what you are saying.” He studied the statue a little longer. “This is not the only…?” He waved his hand at the statue and included the tiny room in the motion.

  The woman touched his elbow and led the way into the room. Worshiping the Mother is a very private thing and it comes from the heart. If you have never done so before, perhaps you would simply like to get to know Her first. Make yourself comfortable.” She indicated the small rug spread on the floor in front of the statue. There was no other furniture in the small room. “Take as long as you want.”

  “What do I do?” asked Canis.

  “Whatever is in your heart,” said the woman. “By the way, my name is Loren. Find me when you are satisfied and I will get Dora ready for you.” She left him and Rrusharr in the room and quietly closed the door.

  Canis looked at the now closed door; there was no latch on it. He had never seen a door without a latch. This one had only a simple knob in the center of the panel. He turned back to the statue. Its detail fascinated him. He knelt down on the rug and felt Rrusharr settle down by the door.

  As he studied the quiet face, he felt a soothing calm come over him and he bowed his head. He thought he might have slept. He hadn’t done much of that since he started his search for the girl. He thought he might be dreaming when he saw Dagon and several of his students searching the city and knew they were searching for him. He saw Dagon meet up with the three constables who had led him to this job. What were they saying?

  His view swooped in on them as if he were a bird.

  One of the constables was speaking. “Yes, he came to us looking for work. He wanted to earn some money. We thought he could help us in locating a kidnapped girl since he has that wolf with him. We haven’t seen him since he took the job.”

  “What girl was kidnapped?” asked Dagon.

  “Master Hale’s daughter. We had already exhausted everything we could think of. Canis was our last hope, he had that…wolf.”

  “I didn’t know Hale had a daughter. I’ve been to his house many times. He sells good quality weapons and I’ve never seen a child of any age around there. I don’t even remember him having a wife.”

  “We saw her room, sir.”

  “Listen, you got the boy into this, you find him and bring him back; do you hear me. If you don’t, I may have to take this to the king.”

  “Yes sir,” said the constable.

  When Dagon and his companions left to continue their search, one of the constables turned to another and said, “Have you ever heard of Dagon taking such an interest in one of his students?”

  “Never, he always turns them loose for us to try and control. We’ve locked up plenty of his students and he never came looking for them. I wonder what makes this one so special?”

  Canis didn’t hear the response. He opened his eyes to look up at the statue again. “I owe Master Patro my life, but not all of it. Does he think to keep me as his slave and fight me in the arena? If you are the Mother of us all, help me to find my path. Help me to do right, but I will not return to the collar.” He glanced toward the darkening window so he took up the flint and lit the candle that rested on the pedestal of the statue.

  In the flickering light of the candle, he thought he could detect movement in the statue. Then again, perhaps it was just another dream. The tiny hand reached out and she touched her thumb between his eyebrows. “Your stand is solid and your arm is strong. I give you my blessing,” she whispered in a voice that was clear like a crystal. “You will find your people. You will take them what they need. You are the bridge.”

  When Canis reached a hand up to feel where she had touched his face, he felt something hard between his eyebrows. When he prodded it with his fingernail, he found it to be quite solid. Not like a scab on his skin, more like a piece of bone protruding through it, though there was no pain when he touched it, nor was there any blood.

  He stood and looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the window made into a rude mirror by the light of the candle and the darkness outside. When he pushed his hair out of the way, he saw, between his eyebrows, a white stone. At least it looked like a stone. Though it was white, he’d seen bone before and it definitely wasn’t bone. It was about the size of a fingerprint, and he touched the glass in the dew of his breath to compare. It didn’t protrude very far, and it looked have some glitter in the center, though this light was too poor for detail. Looking at his reflection, reminded him of his father and he turned his head to the side. Maybe his nose was a little long, but then maybe it was only his age. His profile didn’t look any different from anyone else’s.

  He went and faced the candlelit statue again. “What have you given me?”

  The candlelit face only held a soft smile that spoke of tenderness and love. A thing he had seen before, from time to time, long ago, when his mother had the time.

  He sank back down to the rug and bowed his head low, a move he hadn’t been capable of until this moment. The next thing he knew was a gentle hand on his shoulder scarcely a second after Rrusharr’s soft thought told him that the hand belonged to Loren.

  “I didn’t expect that you would be here so long. You must have been tired.” She gasped. “Oh my. What is that?”

  For a moment, Canis forgot what he had seen in the dark window, and then he noticed that the window wasn’t dark anymore; it was morning. He stood quickly. “We should go.” Then he saw where her eyes were looking and reached up to touch the stone again. In hadn’t been a dream. Not that part anyway. He wondered if any of the rest of it had been. “She said She gave me Her blessing. She called me a bridge. What does that mean?”

  “It means you are blessed by the Mother. I have never seen such a gift, it’s beautiful.”

  “But I do not understand.”

  “It means she watches over you.”

  With a flair of anger, Canis said, “Men have sought to be my master. Does She do so too? If so, then I do not want this blessing.”

  The Mother is not a master,” said Loren. “She is simply the Mother, and She has directed Her attention toward you.” She studied the dark expression on Canis’s face. “It’s a good thing. Trust me, it is.”

  Canis wasn’t too good at trust. Trust had always come back to bite him, but he didn’t see much choice, the stone was there, imbedded solidly into his skull. He would see where it led him. “We should go.”

  “Would you consider breakfasting with us before you go?” asked Loren. “My husband has returned. He would like to meet you.”

  Canis was about to decline, but a less than gentle reminder from his middle betrayed the fact that they had spent the last four days hunting something they wouldn’t be eating, and last night’s supper hadn’t been enough to make up for it.

  Loren smiled. “I think you better join us.”

  Canis followed her out of the shrine and into the kitchen where the rest of her family was gathered.

  Loren’s husband looked at him critically. “You’re a bit young to be doing this kind of work, aren’t you?”

  “So many people have told me,” replied Canis. “I need to raise a good deal of money and work is scarce for me.”

  “Why do you need to raise so much money?” asked the man.

  “I wish to return the money Master Patro paid to Master Dagon for my lessons in the sword. Then I thought to continue the lessons with Master Dagon by paying for them myself, but I have learned something that may cause me to reconsider that plan.”

  “Master Patro – isn’t he a slave trader?” asked Loren.


  “He is.” Canis dug into the food on his plate while leftovers were found for Rrusharr just as she was beginning to picture the rats in the alley behind the school.

  The man ran his hand down his face as if by doing so he could wipe away the troubles before him. “I run a caravan around to the closer settlements and farmers. I make three different trips during the summer that take about two months each. I can’t pay you much, but you can come work for me.”

  Canis studied the man for a while. He wondered if he could actually afford an employee, or if he even needed one. “I may consider your offer one day, but I feel I must repay my debts before I leave the city. Otherwise, Master Patro may think I am running away from him. I do not wish to bring my troubles down on you.”

  The man merely raised an eyebrow and finished his meal. When he rose from the table, he kissed Dora on the top of her curly head then gave his wife a peck on the cheek before leaving to go to work.

  Canis and Dora left shortly after, leaving Loren to wait at home alone.

  No Good Deed

  Canis hired a carriage to take them across town and the driver wanted extra for Rrusharr to ride along. Canis merely shrugged. “She can run along side.” Rrusharr even perked up at the idea.

  “No, no. Can’t have no wolf spookin’ my team. Just get it in, but you pay extra if it claws up the seats.”

  “Fair enough,” said Canis, and he lifted Dora in.

  When they reached Hale’s house, he told the man to wait for them, then left Rrusharr there to make sure he actually did.

  “Stay close to me,” he said to Dora just before he knocked on the door.

  When they were ushered into Hale’s presence, he said, “Well, it took you long enough. Go to your room, girl.”

  Dora reached out and took a hold of Canis’s tunic.