by BJ Hanlon
Edin’s breathing slowed even further, suddenly all his senses seemed to cease as something twisted inside of his stomach. The growing sensation was quick and then seemed to leap from his body.
A silvery white object flickered into existence in his mind. The sound rushed back and he heard a gasp and a satisfied chuckle. Edin blinked opened his eyes and saw the glowing grape was real, not just in his head. His jaw dropped as he stared.
He glanced at Master Horston, then Grent. Both were staring.
A smile came to his face as the laughter built inside of him. Edin chuckled.
Master Horston followed, but the old man’s chuckle sounded more like a dog coughing after drinking too much water. He’d never heard that before.
“Well I’ll be,” Grent said. Edin saw a smile on the man’s face. “That was impressive.”
Edin tossed the grape toward Grent, then as quick as it came, all the energy rushed out of him and he slipped into unconsciousness.
A rough shake to his shoulder pulled him from the sleep. Edin grunted. Another shake. His eyelids felt heavy.
Master Horston was saying something to him. His voice sounded like he was calling through a long tunnel and Edin could barely make it out. Slowly he understood.
“Are you okay?” Master Horston said, his voice a little clearer but still distant.
Edin mumbled. His mind was turning like a waterwheel in a stream. Where was he? Not his bed. There were forest sounds around him, chirping birds, rustling trees…
Slowly it came back to him, the last couple days of horror. What was his last memory? After a moment, he remembered the grape. Edin held it and tossed it. Then nothing.
Did it sap his energy that much? He thought about it again, he felt a rush. When he threw it all strength just vanished.
“I’m not carrying him anymore.” It was Grent’s voice though it was odd.
Edin peeled open his eyes and saw the blurred outline of the old man silhouetted in a noon time sun.
“How long?” Edin asked. Even if he could stand, there’d be no way he could hike through the forest.
“Fifteen hours,” Horston said.
“Magi are able to draw on energy from your surroundings,” Grent groaned. “let the natural power seep into your body. I’ve seen it done before. A restart, though it takes a long time to master.”
“How do you know that?” Horston said but then he added, “ahh.”
Edin was too tired to talk, his mouth felt dry.
“Concentrate on the world around you,” Grent said. “The sounds, sights, smells become sharper.”
Edin could barely think let alone concentrate. After what felt like an hour, he was finally able to. Edin felt a slight tugging in his stomach like he had a rope attached to his navel. Nothing happened. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the energy in the world. What would it even look like?
“Imagine tiny balls surrounding you, the particles you spoke about, feel them in the surrounding world. Encourage them to join you,” Grent said. “This time do not release it. Keep it in.”
In his mind he started to see points of lights. It was like staring into the sky on a cloudless evening. Millions of stars.
A stick snapped somewhere around him.
Edin almost lost it, but suddenly they began to glow and slowly move toward him as if he were calling them. He was calling them. They moved like salmon fighting against the current and joined in his body.
His body jolted awake and he shot up, his eyes opened and he looked around. He was standing next to the tree. Edin glanced around and saw Master Horston lying on his back a few feet away.
Grent was unmoved, his eyes seemed distant. “Good work.”
“You were glowing… what happened?” Master Horston said pushing himself to his feet and brushing off his long robe.
“I,” he paused for a second, “I did what Grent said. I pictured the stars as the particles and pulled them in.” He straightened out his arms and moved on his legs. He was sore, but his muscles seemed to be completely invigorated.
Master Horston eyed Edin. “So, you drew in the energy… when you tossed the ball?”
“I used the energy in my body,” Edin paused. “It felt like I opened the spigot on a cask.” In his mind, the words made sense to him, though he wasn’t sure where they were coming from. He moved his gaze between the two men.
Grent began stroking his beard in a way reminiscent of Master Horston.
“So, you can create things with energy, but if you lose the energy you… pass out like a damsel in distress?” Master Horston said.
“I wouldn’t say like that,” Edin said.
“I would.”
When the white spike ran through the crillio he passed out but when the shield hung around him, he didn’t. He really didn’t know? What could he really do then, besides the shield? A sword or armor maybe, how long could he hold it?
“So, you are able to work with the sword?” Grent said.
“We should leave immediately,” Master Horston said. “We only covered a league today.”
“Cause I was carrying the damsel. He needs to learn to fight without the powers. One hour.” Grent turned to Edin, “Next section of the first set. Are you ready?”
“I guess…” Edin said not sure if he could.
Grent moved through the first moves and then the second stopping after about two minutes. “Your turn.”
Edin furrowed his brow, the first part was still difficult to remember, his mind still groggy but he got through them. Then he moved slowly to the second sequence with Grent stopping him and whacking at his blade in the same fashion as last time. Most times Edin lost grip, a few times though, he held but his hand stung from the impact.
Edin worked on the form slowly, it was as if he was combining the stance training with the forms. His legs burned but he kept going. He found that if he didn’t think about the pain in his legs, it didn’t bother him as much. At least until he’d collapse.
He was sweaty and sticky by the time they finished. His chest heaved for air as he sucked down a waterskin and snacked on apples and stale bread.
“I wish we had horses,” Edin said thinking about the hike before them. By the height of the sun he estimated it to be about one.
“We were in a bit of a rush. Anyways, we’ll be descending the Great Cliffs, we won’t be able to bring any horses.”
“I still don’t know how we’re going to do that. Isn’t it almost a three-hundred-yard vertical drop?” Edin asked.
“Near vertical,” Grent said, “the only accessible trail is a week’s march south, but we’ll never get through borders… on either side. Only the Por Fen and special merchants can cross.”
“What about farther, I know the cliffs end some fifty leagues from the sea.”
“My geography lessons actually stuck,” Horston said with a surprised look.
“It’s still patrolled, and the forest down there is thick with bandits and wild men.” He shook his head.
“And it’s an extra two months… my old bones can’t take that,” Horston put in.
“But if we use the horses to go south…”
Grent shook his head. “We have our route. Today we reach the road and head east. We need to sneak into Dunbilston, there’s no way around it.”
“I’m not happy about the cliffs either, but it is the best way,” Master Horston said as he finished crunching on the bread.
They began gathering together their supplies and started for the road, it’d near evening when l they reached it. Grent estimated they’d traveled thirty leagues through the forest and would come out just west of a town called Oakside.
“Edin, continue creating the ball, but not releasing the energy. Like the terrin said we’re not carrying you.”
They walked through the forest, toward the North Road that traveled the length of Resholt to the cliffs. In a time long past, it was said to have run the length of the entire continent in a near straight line as fitting the old
Kingdom. Back then Yaultan wasn’t just a backwater town.
Edin wondered how far they’d be if they’d just grabbed horses from some stable on the road. Probably at Brisbi.
He kept working at manipulating the energy around him and within him. Starting with a grape he was finally able to get an apple sized ball as they reached the tree line. It would appear and then flow back into his body. He kept pushing himself to make larger objects.
“Nothing overt now,” Master Horston said. “It won’t do if the Por Fen hear of something magical. They’ll be on us quickly.”
He once saw a drawing of a mountain man from the cold land far to the north of them, past the Darkener Pine Forest and the Esto Mountains. In the drawing the man held an axe that was as tall as he was and it probably weighed a hundred pounds or more.
Edin wondered if he could create that, but it would have to wait. Edin kept creating the smaller objects he could keep hidden and after a few hours it was coming easier.
A little pull and twist in the stomach and he had an apple. Many hours past when they stopped for supper in a field only a stone’s throw from the road.
They were beneath a single oak tree. As Edin looked at it, he found someone carved UT and NE inside a heart. Edin ran his fingers across that. He’d once done the same for him and Kes. She blushed at him when she saw it but said nothing.
Near to their left were the remnants of a camp with a circle of stones and cold ashes.
Edin’s legs were tired, but not as bad as previous days. After a quick meal of dried fruit and meat Grent made him work the Oret Nakosu in the stances. When finished to Grent’s satisfaction, the warrior stood and came over to him.
“Normally, I wouldn’t move so quickly to new forms… but I’m not sure how long we’ll be together so I want to finish the first form then move to the second. It is more complex than the first, but not too bad. There are two hundred distinct moves you’ll need to master. When perfected, you can be called an adept.”
Edin watched and learned, a few moves at a time. Finishing both forms took at least two hours to get through. As he practiced, the men watched by the fire in silence.
Finally, long after the sun had disappeared and he was working only by the dim firelight did Edin stop.
Wind rustled the grass around them as crickets began their nightly call. The breeze chilled his sweaty body. Despite the warming days, at night it was still cool. Spring was barely half over, though they’d received little rain. Edin pulled the cloak over his body.
“What are you doing?” Grent said, “I didn’t say you could stop.”
“I’m exhausted,” Edin shot back. “I can’t move…” He added a bit quieter.
“You’ll never be a blademaster,” Grent said.
Edin scoffed but said nothing.
The next morning, they continued. It was a well-travelled road, kept intact by local minor nobles. A duty his mother made sure was completed around Yaultan.
They passed groups of travelers, warriors and merchants heading in the opposite direction. One caravan with a heavyset man ridding atop a large wagon forced them from the road. Edin counted ten guards, a few of them eyed him and his companions but most were content to march. He wondered what it was they were carrying that was so valuable and why it was headed toward Yaultan.
“Gems from Brisbi,” Master Horston said as if reading his mind, “They’ll turn south and head to Aldenheim.”
For the next week and a half they traveled east passing through small hamlets and only stopping to pick up more food for the journey. In one, he spotted a poster, a poor likeness of him but it held his name. One-hundred Gold. Dead or Alive.
Edin pulled his cloak up and was wary of people leering at him.
He was growing more endurance. The muscles throughout his body began to take less time to recover and he had moved onto the third set. They passed plowed fields. Small copses of trees and next to field stone barriers. By the look of the farms, he was certain seeds were planted in the barren mounds and they were waiting to sprout. At one point, he heard the gurgling of a stream and saw a man-made channel flowing toward a large barren field. If it was a part of a tributary to the Crys or another river he didn’t know.
They reached the gates of Kurban at almost six on the twelfth day. The structures were built in the same fashion as his village, timbers with thatched roofs and mud stucco plastered about them to keep the elements out. The town was smaller than Yaultan and run by another noble. Another baron, though Edin had never met him.
The North Road ran through the village and was lined exclusively with shops. Butchers, smithies, a general store and he could smell the tanner with the wind pushing in from the south. He couldn’t see any manor or keep. Like at his own manor, he assumed the ruler wouldn’t want to live near the constant banging of the hammer or the eye watering stench of the tanner.
Grent kept scanning everything as they walked. For some reason, Edin felt that someone was watching them. Grent suggested Edin walk with a small limp but soon the weird hobble wore his on his legs. The sword and hunting knife at his side would’ve stated that he was at least healthy enough to use them.
Grent steered them toward an inn, “stay here.” He spat and nodded to the wanted poster next to the sign. Edin sighed. A night in a warm bed would be wonderful.
It was rough the way Grent said it and as Edin noticed a bit more of the people around them, he knew why. There were boards on many of the windows, ragged men staggered, others hunched under small porches with only the glow from their pipes letting anyone know they were there. A woman dressed in very low-cut gown called to a passerby. ‘Gold for a good night.’
A gaggle of about ten kids, some only a few years old, others as old as ten were dodging in and out of the surrounding stores laughing.
Once, a shop owner chased, but only get a few feet out of his front door before he yelled and turn back inside. Clearly, he didn’t want to leave the shop unattended.
Edin figured that large theft was rare, but small-time theft, a loaf of bread, a pair of boots was common enough. A man a few seasons back was hung in Yaultan for trying to steal a sword from Jassir. The man claimed it was for protection, however, it was difficult to understand him at the trial because of the many slashes from Jassir’s blade. The man told Edin that if a blacksmith couldn’t handle a blade, he wasn’t a trustworthy smith.
The door opened and Grent waived them in.
Edin entered the raucous room. A large fire blazed in the corner, men drunkenly swayed as they spoke. A lot of it with their hands. In the corner a woman sat facing the crowd playing a lute. They were sad songs, one’s he’d heard before.
“It’s her…” Edin whispered. The bard from the Dancing Crane and the night he killed Dexal. Near her was the huge man, her protection, probably a family member or a lover. The woman never saw Edin, but he kept his head down due to the sign and shuffled toward a corner table on the opposite side of the building from the bard.
The smell of a roast came to him a moment before a grungy serving woman. She gave a half-hearted smile. The lady was probably Grent’s age and wore a green dress with a light-yellow vest. Her arms were spindly but she moved with the knowing grace of someone who could be crashed into by a drunk and still hold onto a few platters.
“What’ll ya be having. Got roasted duck with vegetables, we also got ale, wine, and cider.”
“Three orders of the duck and three ales,” Grent said.
“Two ales and a wine if you please, my dear,” Master Horston said.
The bard’s throaty voice was melancholy but men tried their best to drown her out. He could barely catch three words strung together. The lute was unheard.
The serving woman took an inordinate amount of time to grab their drinks. Edin drank the ale quickly. He ordered another, his mind was turning back to his mother and Kes. Kesona said once that the stories were sorrowful so that we’d cherish the good times because they never last. She was sad at that moment, though w
ouldn’t tell Edin why.
Edin gritted his jaw but couldn’t stop the tears from forming. He remembered sitting with his mother in the great room, her chasing him as a child, reading to him, telling him stories.
Kes, Berka and he, running by the river, Kes and he talking beneath a tree, her head on his shoulder. He swallowed and wiped his eyes. These were good memories, experiences that would never happen again.
Suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore. The woman appeared with more ales and Edin took a deep drink. Grent eyed him and told her to keep them coming. Edin had three ales down and was working on the forth when his food arrived.
Edin picked at it with his fork while he tried to keep the images from his head. The few times he heard the minstrel’s voice, the words pierced his thoughts, cutting into him like a blade to the heart. Edin tried to put the food down but pushed it away after a few bites.
“You must eat,” Grent whispered, though his tone was soft.
“I can’t,” Edin said pushing the food with his fork.
“Force yourself, this is the best meal we’ll have for at least another couple of weeks.”
“My cooking isn’t up to your lofty standards, eh sword jockey?” Horston said. “It’s at least as good as this rubbish.”
Edin sighed. After a few more ales and half of his food Edin’s head and stomach began to swim as he looked at the patrons—mostly men, glossy eyed and warbling.
The bard finished her songs.
A few tables away sat a petite woman staring into the eyes of a larger man. They seemed to be around Edin’s age. He watched the man slip his hand onto hers as a sly grin came across her face. The man winked and slowly they stood heading for the door.
A few men, guards by the looks of them, were laughing at the bar. The portly man behind it was grinning with them, obviously having just told a joke.
Master Horston leaned back and closed his eyes. He looked almost asleep in his chair. Grent however was watching with intensity. His ever-present gaze washing over the patrons.
The bard and her man were discussing something. She had a pack slung over her shoulder as he held her instrument and another pack. She was leaving in the middle of the night, walking out like a person in her tragic melodies.
