by kubasik
It seemed suddenly clear to me that men loved war because it made the world dangerous, and thus gave them a role as protector. In general they are bigger and stronger than women, certainly stronger than children. When the world is dangerous, they have a place.
A place that makes them very important J'role smiled because I would need him now.
I said, "They've been dropping fireballs. Just dropping them."
"That's only a small part of it. All the while we were with the Stoneclaw clan the Therans were trying to negotiate with the Kingdom of Throal for a trade treaty. Just like the one they had before the Scourge. King Varulus said he wouldn't even sit down at the table until the Therans stopped the practice of slavery."
"That didn't sit well with them," I said as if in a trance, the obligatory tale of war's foreplay slipping from my lips.
"Not at all. They kept up the negotiations for weeks, then finally began attacking dwarven caravans and the farmlands around Throal."
"The dwarfs retaliated."
"Yes," J'role said excitedly, and he carried on from there, his tale full of mind numbing details and facts about the nature of politics and war, all of it overstuffed with generalized theories about how Politics work, how War works, how People work. But rarely did any individual show up in his calculations, except as the representative of a force of history
— A Soldier, A Politician, A Tyrant.
As he rambled on, I wondered if any of these people were parents. Did they have parents they cared about? Hated? Did they fight for someone they loved? What did they do with their time when they weren't plotting the ruin of all the rest of us who didn't care about their bloody ambitions?
"This isn't how you talk when you tell your stories." He stumbled. "What?"
"Your stories. Especially the stories you told on Twilight Peaks. People acted from passions in your stories. They acted from love. All the actions sparked from personal matters."
"I'm ... I'm not talking about stories ... These are real..."
"Real? J'role, what is so real? Your speaking theories about how the world works? Your turning name givers — name givers! — into mechanical objects devoid of hearts, or ties to their home, their neighbors?"
A few villagers stopped to watch, quickly perceiving an argument was taking place, the men gathered around tightly, most of the women formed a looser, second ring.
J'role stared at me, suddenly taken aback. "What are you talking about? The citizens of Throal are tied to their kingdom."
"No they're not. They're tied to their homes. Their children."
"They fight for the ideals of the government."
"Only so they can live in peace with those they love. Few people fight for the love of an abstract, and it will only be those who have no one to love."
"That's not true ..."
"So you say. You've said a lot, J'role. I've always assumed it was true. Now I know it's true in your own way."
Everyone realized now that the fight was a personal matter, or at least that I was trying to drag it that way. The men looked down at the ground, into the air, anywhere but at what was in front of them, and then broke off as if they hadn't been interested in the first place.
The woman left as well, but with a much slower pace.
"My way."
"What you consider love. What you consider violence."
"Violence?"
"What do you want? Why have you come here?"
He looked up, his brown eyes glinting with the sun's trapped light just for a moment. He remembered. "The Overgovernor. He wants you. He wants the boys. His soldiers are scouring the land looking for you."
"Thank you for the warning."
"Releana ... You need help ..."
"J'role, I don't want you dominating me anymore."
He pulled back, touched his fingertips to his chest. "I don't want to dominate you. I want to protect you."
I stared at him, giving him a moment to put it together himself. He said nothing. I shook my head, shrugged, turned, walked away.
"Releana!"
He ran up to me.
"What are you doing? They will find you."
"I'm sure they will. They're planning to dominate all of Barsaive. I'm sure they'll have no trouble finding me."
"You can't wait here. What happens when they do? Who will take care of you?"
I slapped him. No — I punched him. I meant to slap him, thought I would slap him, but my hand balled up. It slammed into his mouth and split his lip. A small trickle of blood ran down his chin. He touched it, his eyes opening wide at the sight of it, as if surprised to see he was mortal after all.
"Has it ever occurred to you I could take care of myself?"
"But you ... DAMN! Everyone needs help! I'm not being unreasonable. We all need help!"
"I have Wia. I have the village. We all help each other."
His voice became quite deep. "They won't help against the Therans."
I wanted to disagree with him, but I could not. It occurred to me that I might be putting the entire village in danger if I remained.
"Do you know what's happening out there?" he asked. He swept his arm northward, taking in the whole of the land. "The Therans have besieged the Throal Mountains.
Nothing can get in or out. They're starving the kingdom."
My jaw tightened. I hadn't known that. It was too far away for anyone in my small village to know about that.
"This isn't some game I'm talking about. Throal is the one place that can stand up to the Therans, but the Therans caught Varulus off guard. He wasn't able to forge the alliances he needed to fend them off. But if Throal is destroyed now, it all ends. The Therans will face only small, factional resistance."
"I didn't know."
"No. You didn't." He folded his arms over his chest, hurt. Making sure I knew he was hurt. "I didn't come here just to protect you — though I do want to keep you safe — I also came to ask you to help. We need you. We need everyone."
"What are you going to do?"
"Break the siege. We have no choice.
20
The crew of the Stone Rainbow had begun helping to debark slaves rescued from a Theran ship. Some of them could barely move their limbs. Some had scars along their backs layered over older scars, so their flesh seemed nothing more than one massive scab.
The Therans had mutilated some — blinded them, cut out tongues. The punishments had become even harsher than since my time as a Theran slave.
I really had no choice.
"I'll need to get some things together," I told J'role.
"And the boys."
I closed my eyes. How could I bring you two into this? Then I said, "And the boys."
When I got to our home, I told Wia about what was happening.
"You can't take them," she told me. We sat at the table, facing each other, knees almost touching. Sunlight, warm and gentle, lit her face and hair with a glow.
"Yes. I know what you mean. But it's the only way. Povelis is looking for them. They're his prize."
"Is isn't easy making choices like this ..."
"I can't leave them behind, Wia. I've got to protect them."
"It's hard ..."
"Yes, deciding how to keep them alive is as difficult as actually doing it."
"Let's keep in mind ... war. I mean soon we'll be at war."
"We? What ... I didn't ...”
A pause, neither of us knowing which one should speak next.
Wia said, "I'm going too. I'm not staying here."
"Of course. You want to go — just like me. But ... I thought you meant you'd look after Samael and Torran. I didn't realize you'd go."
"No. I have to go. What they did to my family
"I know."
"I know why you want to go. You have to stop them. You want to protect your family.
But I have no family to protect. I just have ... I just want to hurt them. You know? We're the same, but different, because you want to hold on to something. To bu
ild it. I just want to tear down."
I touched her hand. "That's not true. You have us."
"Yes." She smiled. I felt graced by that smile. "We have each other. But . .."
"... Yes. It's different ..."
"Yes. Different."
Another silence. I thought for a moment of Wia going to war, all the pain in her driving her into a battle from which she might never return, fighting until nothing remained of her. Nothing that would be considered alive. Finally I said, "I don't want to go without you."
She laughed, and I joined her. "No," she said. "No. And I wouldn't want to go without you. You know, it wasn't the fighting that was too much for me. It was how everyone else saw it. I can kill. I can do what needs to be done. But with the trolls, it was almost as if I were alone in the fight, because I didn't see it the same way everyone else did. You know
..."
"... Yes..."
"There's a way the trolls fought, even the women ... That's why I want you there.
Someone who will see it the same way I do. It's not the doing that bothers me. It's feeling like you're wrong because you don't react the same way everyone else does. The Passion of Thystonius. Just competition. Always that competition. What is that? I want to fight to get something done, to help somebody. Not to prove I'm a better fighter than the person next to me."
While Wia spoke, I remembered seeing my Thystonius during the troll war celebration. I hadn't mentioned it to Wia, or to anybody. It had been too strange. And private. But I wanted Wia to know what she meant to me. I told her about the vision, and also the visions of Garlen.
She listened intently as I related everything. When I'd finished, she said, "That's so strange." I looked at her and began to laugh. She joined in.
"It is," I said. Then, "I don't think the Passion of Thystonius is alien to us. But we all perceive the Passions as they make sense to us. I needed that Passion of supernatural competition to save Samael and Torran. But for me, at least, she came as a woman with children to protect."
"Yes. Thystonius didn't come alone. I've heard about people seeing Garlen as a pregnant woman, of course. But Thystonius ... For you she wasn't alone. See? She had someone with her. The child in her belly. I'll bet the trolls never see the Passion of conflict manifest itself as anything but a stack of muscles." We laughed again. "The Passion is all about them, just them. Alone."
"I think you're right."
The door opened. You two came in. Torran, you said, "Momma, the clown is here. He wants to see you."
We all went, of course. After talking with Wia I realized I could not, did not, know how to separate my Passions to be a mother and my need to be a warrior, so I packed both and set out on the Stone Rainbow.
Despite all my fears, I let you peek up over the rail and stare out over the green landscape of Barsaive. The sun glittered its light over the jungles below, while storm clouds turned the sky gray to the north and west.
Samael said, "Momma, we're as big as everything! We can see everything!"
J'role came up to us, and stared off the bow. "Releana," he said softly. "I want ..."
"Yes."
"Don't interrupt me."
"I wasn't interrupting, I was saying yes."
He shook his head. "I want to ..."
He paused, stuck.
"Samael. Torran," I said, "This is your father."
You turned and looked up at the stranger. He no longer dressed as a clown. He wore black armor now, shiny and well polished, pirated from a Theran soldier. A long silver sword hung at his side. Both of you eyed it covetously. I became nervous.
J'role smiled, seeing your interest. "You want to learn how to use this?"
You both nodded enthusiastically, then quickly looked up at me to see what I thought of your response.
"J'role, I want them to study elemental magic."
"They should know how to use a sword, no matter what they study."
I swallowed. I didn't want to quarrel. Not in front of the children. "Come here," I said and led him to the other side of the deck. "What you pick up shapes what else you pick up," I told him. "If they learn how to fight with a sword, they'll start thinking as fighters."
"You don't want them to learn how to defend themselves?"
"I don't want them seeking out problems to defend themselves against."
He nodded at this. "All right. I understand. But if they want to learn ..."
"We're parents. We can say no."
"But should we? We're going to war, Releana. The Therans. They should know."
Now I paused. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes." I looked back at the two of you. Your bodies, muscles, already getting so big. "There's really not much choice, is there?"
"Ships ahead!" called the lookout.
Off the bow, still floating like small dots, flew dozens of ships. "What are they?"
"Drakkars," J'role said with a smile. "Krattack has gathered a good dozen crystal raider clans in the effort to break the siege."
"Will that be enough?"
"No. But we've got several t'skrang crews along the Serpent running supplies for us.
They've also lent us money to hire scorcher cavalry mercenaries ..."
"Scorcher mercenaries?"
"Yes," he said with a laugh. "New development from the scorchers. They figured out it would be easier, and usually more lucrative, to get paid to fight rather than wandering around to raid. Some of the tribes at least."
"Looks like you've got it all set."
"No."
"No?"
"No. We have to win."
21
We sailed for many days, traveling north to the Throal Mountains. Scouting reports suggested that most of the Theran forces had gathered around Throal, though some air and ground forces continued the random attacks on the people of Barsaive. Apparently they meant to weaken the spirit of our people so that we wouldn’t do anything to stop the slaughter. I'm sure that it did affect some people that way. But during those days I traveled with people who refused to surrender. The attacks only strengthened our resolve to drive the Therans out of our land.
I watched as J'role taught the two of you how to fight with swords. You practiced with short swords with blunted edges, but this did not assuage my fears. I wasn't so much afraid of you hurting yourselves now, but of what would grow inside you.
On the foredeck J'role rested on his knees, working with you, one after another. He taught you the basic sword cuts and parries, and you repeated them again and again. At first you were both so wild with the swords that I thought J'role would become frustrated and give up. You did not seem to want to learn how to sword fight as much as pretend to be amazing swordsmen.
But J'role knew how to handle this problem. Or rather, he seemed to expect it. His natural affinity for children extended to teaching, and when either of you got out of line, he simply gave you a long look, the expression in his eyes a mixture of harshness and disappointment.
AND IT WORKED! Time and time again you would settle down, glancing down at the ground and then back up at your father, awaiting his next instruction. I couldn't believe it, and I was deeply jealous. It seemed horribly unfair that this man who had been such a small part of your life should exert this much influence over you.
Here came this stranger and you gave him a growing and earnest respect. He told you to do something, and you obeyed not because you feared his anger or that he would take his love away, but because you wanted to please him. I felt a strange sensation in my belly, as if the connection that had tied us since your conception was now unraveling.
Of course, as the days passed, each of you did displease him on occasion. I remember the time you were practicing cuts and parries on the day before we were to meet the scorcher cavalry mercenaries. I had given up watching, for there was no place for me in the activity. But on this occasion I came out to see how you three were doing.
The rest of the crew was busy at work on the rest of the ship. I stood by the castle, leaning against the w
all, the high air cool against my face. A heavy mist surrounded us, and droplets of water formed on my skin and cloak. Neither you nor your father had noticed me, and I suppose you thought yourselves completely alone.
Samael, you missed a parry, and J'role's sword touched your shoulder. He did not hurt you with the blade, for he used careful practice strokes. But a true fury blossomed on his face. I had never seen anything like it from him before, and I drew in a sharp breath.
