The Book of Deacon Anthology

by Joseph R. Lallo

  The fat man greeted him with the word "welcome," one of the few she felt certain she knew the proper usage of. He and the "customer" began an exchange that continued much as the dozens before it, but they spoke too quickly for her to make much sense of their language. It was so blunt, like animals grunting. She was far too accustomed to the musical, multi-tonal serenade of fairy talk to imagine that something so coarse as half of the "words" they exchanged could possibly have any meaning. But somehow she could quickly tell that the topic of discussion had shifted to her.

  The words that they'd spoken so far that stood out to Ayna as new were "cave" and "beast." Each worked its way into almost every sentence, and often quite near to one another. Their order changed, but she knew that one or both of these things were a target of some kind, and the customer seemed to feel that they could be the source of some difficulty.

  After uttering the word "compass," the fat man turned and pulled Ayna down from the shelf, thumping her onto the table. She peered up nervously at the newcomer. He returned to the shelf and snatched something else, clanking it down beside her.

  Ayna looked at the contraption. It was made from thick metal, a ring of closely spaced bars that were nearly as thick as her arm. The circle they formed was as wide as her current prison. A single, solid ring sat atop the bars at a height that was almost as tall as she was. The bottom was a metal plate with a single, wide hole. Beside the contraption was a canvas sack large enough to contain it in its entirety. Another visit to the shelf produced a spool of thick thread and a few heavy lead beads.

  The customer gave the fat man a dubious look, but he merely smiled in return and reached down. With a quick and practiced hand he threaded a few beads onto the end of the twine, then reeled out a decent length of it and bit away the excess. He tied a loose loop onto the free end, then threaded it through the bottom of the metal contraption. From there he pulled the loop of thread up, widening it around his fingers.

  Now his hand reached for Ayna's tube, but rather than plucking it from the counter he peeled back the wire mesh. Her eyes widened and her heart jumped. She darted for the opening, but her long disused wings left her less nimble than she might have been, and he was ready for her besides. A single swipe of the thread-bearing hand caught her, and after transferring her struggling body to the opposite hand she felt him tighten the loop of twine about her waist. He took the metal contraption in one hand and released her with the other. Instantly the weight of the lead beads yanked the twine and pulled her to the floor of the metal tin, pinning her there despite her best efforts to so much as pull herself to her hands and knees.

  He grinned and held the contraption up speaking with an informative tone before snatching up the bag with his free hand. The light suddenly dropped away and Ayna looked up to find he had covered this new prison with the canvas sack, once again plunging her into utter darkness. Her heart fluttered and she struggled desperately against the twine, screaming for mercy. She was about to give up when the twine miraculously went slack. She didn't waste a heartbeat, surging up against the canvas and hurling herself against it. She could feel the wind and air of the outdoors calling to her. If she could only--

  "Ahh!" she cried, the loop pulling tight again and dropping her to the floor of the cage.

  The metal prison twisted and turned, dizzying her, but when the twine slackened again she couldn't help but take another leap for freedom, instantly working out the nearest source of open air. When she reached the canvas again and heaved her body against it, her chance of freedom was yanked away again when the twine grew taut. This time it left her pinned on her back, providing even less leverage and pinching her wings terribly.

  She could hear the fat man's voice begin an exchange with his customer. The customer clearly liked what he had seen, and the discussion shifted as it always did to the price.

  The little fairy tugged at the loop and felt tears of anguish begin to form in her eyes again as the two men haggled. When each seemed to grudgingly agree, and the customer handed over a few coins, the fat man demonstrated how to wrap the weights and thread around the cage to keep it taut around her waist. He then threw her prison in its sack and threw the sack in a larger one. Once again she was trapped in the darkness, now scarcely able to move.

  Somehow she convinced herself each day that things couldn't get any worse. And somehow each day they found a way to do so.

  #

  Ayna jerked awake to the sound of a gruff, bellowing voice. The hours of fruitless struggling in the dark had sent her into an exhausted sleep, but even if she could learn to live with the jostling of her journey and the rattling of the other equipment in the sack with her, the voices of these creatures continued to startle her each time she heard them.

  Wherever she was taken, there were many voices for her to hear, and the stink of crackling fire to burn her nose. One voice was that of the man who had purchased her. He was arguing with the owner of the deepest, roughest voice she'd ever heard. At the beginning or end of every sentence he said a strange new word: Gomder. Ayna supposed that these humans and elves and the like must have names. Gomder must be the rough-voiced newcomer.

  After what sounded like a demand from Gomder, the fairy felt slight breath of wind and saw some faint light filter through the threadbare canvas of her sack. She fell backward as it was lifted into the air. The sack containing Ayna and her cage dropped down hard on a surface and her owner started to pull at the knot. She struggled weakly, hoping perhaps the bumpy journey had loosened the twine. Alas, it was as secure as ever.

  Peering down into her sack and framed by gray sky were the faces of the man who had purchased her and a stranger. And he was strange indeed. Beady brown eyes were staring out from beneath bushy black eyebrows. Aside from a bulbous nose, those eyes were the only part of his face not hidden by a thicket of wild hair. Even when he smiled, it was visible only as a mild shifting of hair and the crinkling of the corners of his eyes. She vaguely remembered her grandfather telling stories of things called dwarfs, but she'd not been certain if any of the people who entered the store while she was perched on her shelf had truly matched the description. In the case of Gomder, there was no doubt. He was certainly a dwarf.

  The scruffy bearded face brightened and he uttered the a sentence that centered around the word compass again. He seemed quite pleased to see Ayna, and almost seemed to recognize her. He looked up and spoke to the man who had purchased her, using the word "Klei" in a way that suggested it was the elderly elf's name. Klei made an irritable remark, then reached down and pulled Ayna's cage from the bag. He gestured it toward Gomder with a few more muttered words, then threw it down.

  Ayna cried out as she felt herself falling through the air, and gasped in startled pain when her cage struck something hard. Gomder barked a few harsh words before picking the cage up again. He spoke a bit more, using the word compass often enough for Ayna to realize they must have believed it was her name.

  Klei tossed the sack to Gomder and gestured that Ayna should be once again placed inside. She shuddered at the thought of being tucked away in the dark again so quickly, but Gomder once again growled an angry reply and shook his head. He started to fiddle with the twine and weights, his thick fingers working with remarkable dexterity to tease out just enough slack so that Ayna could climb to her knees. She looked to him curiously, almost distrustful of what amounted to the first bit of kindness she'd been shown since her capture. She rubbed at the tender area that had been pinned beneath the twine until now.

  Gomder looked to Klei and asked a question about sugar, a word she'd quite thoroughly learned during her time on the shelf, as it was often one of the last things mentioned before she was fed. Klei shook his head and countered with a strange new word. "Molasses." The dwarf nodded and gestured for it.

  Ayna huddled low in her prison, clutching the bars and watching the man who purchased her trudge over to his horse. Gomder set her cage down but remained beside her, arms crossed. He was smaller than the others,
by quite a bit in fact. From what she'd seen of how these creatures treated those smaller than themselves, it was a wonder to her that he wasn't in a cage as well.

  Klei returned with a fist-sized wooden cask, like a barrel in miniature. It had a thick cork driven into a hole near the center where it bulged out, and try as he might the withered old elf couldn't seem to work the thing loose. He handed it instead to Gomder, who took the stopper between a stubby thumb and forefinger and twisted it free with ease.

  "He's so strong..." Ayna uttered.

  The dwarf scraped a bit of the thick, black substance from the end of the cork onto the rim of the cage. He then popped the cork back in and set the cask down.

  She frowned at the smell of this new stuff. It was a sweet scent, a bit like honey, but there was also the strong twist of bitterness, and even smoke. If she wasn't so hungry, she might never have tried it, but as it was her last meal was long ago, and the struggling had left her famished. Scooping at the sticky stuff with her hands, she sampled it. When it touched her tongue she recoiled at the flavor and twisted her face in disgust.

  Ayna had expected bitterness, but this was so much worse than she'd imagined. She fought to swallow it, and shook her head viciously until the flavor died way. There was no doubt it was nourishing, but Ayna knew she wouldn't have to worry about over-indulging in the awful stuff. When her hunger was sated, or at least beaten into submission, she looked around. For the moment she didn't seem to be in any new danger. There was time for her to take in her surroundings.

  The group had set up camp at the very edge of a huge forest. For many, a forest was a forest, one no different from another. To Ayna, this place was instantly and obviously not her home, or any part of it. The trees were of the wrong sort, too close and too thick. Most of all, though, the air felt wrong. It was moving in the wrong direction, mixed with a faint saltiness and carrying the sensation of water and ice. She opened her mind to it and read the wind for miles around. Nothing felt familiar. Ayna didn't know there was as much world as there was distance between her and where she'd spent her life.

  A fire crackled in the center of a ring of people. Klei the elf was the tallest and clearly the oldest, appearing positively frail in comparison to the others. Six other creatures joined him, listening with varying levels of interest and respect as he droned on in his language. They were shorter than he, but taller than Gomder, and Ayna imagined they must be humans. Two of them were females, the rest male. And of course there was Gomder himself, who had joined them in nodding through Klei's speech.

  The elf was the only one dressed in robes. The others were heaped with animal hides rendered down into stiff leather scales, or else they were weighed down with rings or plates of metal. Sharp metal blades hung at some belts, taut wooden bows on some backs. Gomder carried an ax that may have weighed as much as he did. They sat on logs that had been hacked roughly in half, forming makeshift benches. It was one of these benches that held her cage for the moment.

  More stories her grandfather told flickered into her mind. Warriors... they were warriors, heavy with armor and armed for battle. And Klei could only be a wizard. They fit the descriptions perfectly. Even as a child Ayna hadn't believed the tales her grandfather had told. Nothing could be so powerful as he'd claimed they were. The wizards, he'd claimed, could bring to their will not just the wind as fairies did, but water, fire, and earth as well. They could heal the sick with a thought, or cause their enemies to wither and die with a blast of concentrated darkness. And the warriors... swords could slice effortlessly into the hides of wolves. Bows could send arrows flitting faster than a falcon, driving deep into the trunks of trees. And axes could fell the trees themselves. It was madness to believe it all. A tree was a home to dozens of fairies. How could anyone cause it to topple? She may as well believe that the very world could be split in two... and yet here she sat, trapped in a cage and sitting atop the remains of an oak...

  Every last one of them was huge and strong. They were powerful, fearless, and bold. They were everything she was not. In that moment, she began to feel the fear change. Now it was tempered with awe, and beneath that, envy. If she was like them, she never would have been captured. She would never have had to fear eagles and foxes and elves. She could flash her mighty sword and those who would harm her would flee in fear, trembling at the sight of her precisely as she trembled in the sight of them now.

  Why did she have to be such an insignificant nothing when creatures like them existed? She pounded her fists on the cage, for the first time in anger instead of terror, and cursed the cruelty of fate as her keepers plotted out what the future had in store for her.

  She listened to their words, trying to pick out those she believed she understood, but there were precious few. It was still a terrible struggle for her to decipher even a smattering of their clumsy words.

  There were a few things, at least, which were clear. Klei was their leader, and Gomder the most enthusiastic among the group. Klei spoke in an increasingly spirited manner. Again he spoke of some manner of beast and cave. There was also much talk of a "war." Words like "honor" and "glory" seemed to draw cheers from the others. Their roars of support were startled Ayna each time the broke out. Leaving her heart racing and her nerves on edge.

  Finally, the words became more subdued, more thoughtful. Klei seemed to be instructing the others. The lack of outbursts allowed her recover her composure. She looked to Gomder. He was sitting beside her cage, slowly rubbing a rag across the head of his ax. Unlike many of the weapons carried by the others, his equipment was utterly immaculate. Even with her untrained eye, she could see that the ax was worn but in good repair. The same could be said for his armor, and a pick that hung from his belt. He dribbled some oil onto his rag and rubbed it onto the blade some more, not stopping until it was gleaming like the surface of a frozen lake. When he was through, one by one he checked the items on his belt and in his pouches then turned to Ayna.

  She'd ventured a second taste of the meal that had been offered to her, and this time she had a bit more trouble getting it down. She looked sheepishly back at him as he gazed down at her, trying to halt the coughing and gagging fit that the latest taste had prompted. After a moment of thought, he began to rummage through his pack and revealed an odd, round-tipped chisel of some kind and a stout, heavy-headed hammer.

  Ayna scrambled back when she realized that he was heading for her cage, and moved as far aside as the slack in the twine would allow. Gomder placed the tip of the chisel between the hole in the cage's base and its wall, then raised the hammer. She panicked, curled into a ball, and covered her ears. The clang of hammer on chisel and chisel on metal shook her to the core. She didn't move or even open her eyes until she felt a splash of moisture. When she ventured a peek, she found that the chisel blow had dented the floor of the cage, causing it to sit a bit crooked on the half log. Into the dent he'd poured a dribble of water.

  It too her a few moments to realize that he'd seen her coughing and had prepared a bowl of water for her. She crept of to it, washing the lingering flavor from her mouth, then looked up to him gratefully. He'd already turned back to speech that Klei was giving.

  #

  For a time, Ayna's days became a shifting, clinking cacophony punctuated by brief, precious glimpses of the outside world. She spent most of her time stuffed into Gomder's bag. Though she was stored with things like canteens and bandages, the smell of old leather and unwashed clothes made her gag, he at least took the care to set her carefully at the top and pad around her to keep her from thumping about. Ayna felt that if she were in the care of the elf, or one of the others she would have been buried beneath other things, battered and crushed as they shuffled along. Gomder was better than that.

  Once per day, just before the rest of the group set down for the night, Gomder pulled her from the pack and set her down for a meal. In the beginning, she looked forward to this time, not only because it gave her a brief moment to gaze at the sky and put some food in her stom
ach, but because it was a respite from the jostling of travel. When the others finished their meal, she was packed away again for the night, but she could at least sleep while they did. Inevitably, she would be shaken awake by the rough motion of Gomder donning his pack, and another interminable day of travel would begin.

  On the second day, the meals were eaten under the thick canopy of the woods. The fifth saw their supper eaten in the shadow of a mountain. On the sixth, her precious glimpse of the sky was denied her, for when she was fetched and fed, there was no sky at all.

  "Supper, compass," Gomder grumbled, dabbing a blob of molasses onto the sticky section of the compass's rim that had become her dinner plate.

  Ayna gazed about, withering fear not allowing her to comprehend what she saw. There was darkness, all around her. It wasn't the darkness of night. There were no stars, and no moon. Most nights, the cloud cover in the northern alliance was dense enough to deny a clear view of such things, but even then there was a glow. Here, the only light came from a dim torch set at the feet of the circle of warriors. It filled the stagnant, lifeless air of the place with stinking smoke, and what little of the ground and walls it revealed looked to be little more than cold, gray stone.

  This was a place of shadows and echoes. She tried to read the wind, but almost as it had been when she was trapped in the jar, the wind was not there for her. Even the mighty, howling winds of the mountain seemed distant and muffled, strangled by soil and stone. It was an awful, withering sensation...

  Without the wind, she felt so horribly alone, adrift. And these fools didn't seem to care what they had done. They were inside the mountain. The warriors had dragged her along as they trapped themselves just as they had captured her, bottling themselves in a horrid abyss far from the light of day.

  Panic gripped her, fluttering in her chest and burning her mind. She pulled madly at the twine around her middle, driven only by the need to get away. Above her, Gomder released a rumbling sound that she'd been able to determine was his version of laughter, pointing at Ayna and muttering something involving the words compass and cave. The others had been using this last word often enough that it must have been the name for this place.