The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril

by Joseph Lallo

  “Even when you are insulting someone else, you insult me too,” Ivy growled. “Leave both of us alone. Deacon is a good man. He has helped us, why shouldn't we help him?!”

  “No, no. She is right, I . . . “ Myranda began.

  “Don't agree with her!” Ivy scolded. “What does she know? You just ignore her and get your strength back so that we can finish making sure that Deacon is healthy, too.”

  “Listen, beast, I . . . “ Ether began.

  “No, YOU listen! Myranda has a good heart and a good mind, and if she decided to do this then it was the best decision. I don't have to listen to you spray your venom at us every time we show something you consider to be weakness, be it emotion or compassion or anything like that. You just save your breath, because I am not paying any attention to you anymore. When we have to kill something, then you can open your mouth. Until then, just keep it shut! Understand!?” Ivy lectured.

  Her heart was racing, and no doubt if she'd more of her strength about her she might have been fighting off the fiery transformation that anger so frequently pulled from her. Ether was taken aback, holding her tongue as fury and indignation each fought to have their own words expressed first. Ivy smiled triumphantly and snatched up her violin. She launched into a spirited melody that managed to perfectly convey her mood. The golden aura soon followed, filling the cave with a warm glow. It was not long before the weariness began to vanish from Myranda's muscles and her mind began to clear. By the time the final jaunty notes of the tune rang out, Myranda was nearly herself, albeit tired, and Deacon was beginning to come around.

  Ivy continued to play, though the aura faded to a dim glow as her mood drifted back to normal. Deacon looked about, his eyes turning first to Ivy, then to Myranda, each looking none the worse for the ordeal that they had been through. He then looked himself over. The effects of the spell lingered, it would seem. The scrape that was the site of the infection was far worse than it should have been, and he barely had the force of will to hold his eyes in focus, but the withering feeling eating at him from within was gone.

  “How did you manage to cure yourself?” he slurred to Myranda.

  “Your method, with a bit of aid from the holy water,” she replied.

  “You must describe it to me,” he said, searching the area around him for his book and stylus.

  “Later. For now you need to eat and get some real rest,” Myranda said.

  “Myranda, I cannot be expected to sleep knowing that doing so might risk the loss of the facts of this momentous occasion. The clarity of our recollection is fading as we speak. To allow information to be lost is the greatest crime I can commit. I . . . “ Deacon rambled, trying to pull himself to where the book had fallen.

  “Fine. You eat, I will write,” Myranda offered, adding. “Ivy, make sure he eats something. I haven't got the strength to argue with him.”

  Ivy nodded vigorously.

  Reluctantly, he agreed. Myranda began to record all that she could recall.

  Deacon asked questions, directed her writings, and generally focused on what was written to such a degree that it was only with the gentle insistence and aid of Ivy that he managed to eat anything at all. Finally, Deacon seemed satisfied with Myranda's record and turned his attention to nourishment. As Myranda flipped through the pages of the book, looking over Ivy's illustrations, she became aware of the fact that not a single word of the volumes that Deacon had written was familiar to her. Her time in Entwell had exposed her to a fair number of languages, both written and spoken, but save for the occasional character or symbol, the book bore little resemblance to any of them.

  “What language is this?” she asked, looking over the random assortment of runes with increasing confusion.

  “It isn't any one language,” he replied, eagerly turning away from the food Ivy was offering. “It is shorthand. I record my ideas in the language in which I can state it most tersely. It allows for a very information dense . . . “

  Ivy interrupted him by shoving the next bite of food into his mouth.

  “You, stop asking questions,” Ivy ordered Myranda, turning to Deacon to add. “You, stop answering them. You are never going to get better if you don't eat something.”

  Myranda grinned at how seriously Ivy was taking her new role. When the dutiful creature was satisfied, she made sure that each of those in her care were as comfortable as she could make them, and watched over them until real sleep came, not the exhausted unconsciousness that so frequently took its place. When she was sure that they were resting properly, she eagerly took her meal and her rest as well.

  Lain watched as she nestled between them. He scarcely believed it was possible. He'd never had a place in this world. He'd never belonged. All that he had, he had carved for himself. All of the problems that he faced, Ivy faced tenfold. She did not even know her past. Even her form was forced upon her. And yet, here she was. This was her place. These were her people. He turned to Ether. On her face was the look of detached disdain, but behind it there was something else. Something out of place.

  Ether watched Lain sit and begin the trance that took the place of sleep. As she did, she smoldered with an emotion she never imagined she would feel. Envy. It was only right that the pitiful creatures of this world envy her, but to envy one of them? Or two or three? They were useless, weak, foolish, and yet . . . they had the respect, even the adoration of Lain. Lain, who in Ether had found his sole equal, instead squandered his attentions on the blasted facsimile. When he spoke to Ivy, there was affection. When he spoke to Myranda, there was trust. When he spoke to the shape shifter, there was none of that. He actually saw her as an annoyance, while the manufactured beast, one who is naught but a liability, is coddled and fawned over. What could the two of them possibly have that she lacked? And the two humans. They found in one another what Ether was denied. It was a sign of weakness to desire this waste of time, this mental illness that they called love. Nevertheless, the yearning for it consumed her mind. She tried desperately to force the thoughts away. They had led her to betrayal in the past. If she could not master them, there was no telling what they might drive her to. They were a weakness, a weakness she'd convinced herself that she simply lacked. Now, after an eternity to prepare wasted, she was at their whims.

  Without sleep as a respite, the thoughts steeped in Ether's mind for a silent few hours. Lain was the first to stir, stepping outside to survey the conditions outside and plan their next steps in the journey. Myranda was second, Ivy waking shortly after.

  “Have you recovered from your act of idiocy?” Ether asked with her usual level of contempt.

  “I feel as well as I ever have, thanks in no small part to Ivy's excellent care,” Myranda said. It was not entirely true, but she was better by far than she had been the day before.

  “Oh, it was the least I could do,” Ivy said shyly.

  “Enough!” Ether shouted, turning away from the spectacle.

  “Are you well enough to move on? We have lingered here for too long,” Lain said.

  “I am,” Myranda replied.

  “Me too!” Ivy chimed in.

  “Wonderful. That only leaves us with Myranda's latest lost cause,” Ether remarked.

  “No need to worry about me,” Deacon said, groggily.

  He managed to stand, but it was clear that the night had not been as kind to him as it had been to the others. There was improvement, to be sure, but he clearly was far from well. Twice he nearly fell as he gathered the scattered books and paraphernalia he'd removed from his bag. When he took his crystal into his hand, it became clear that the weakness went deeper than his body. The light in the crystal flickered dimly as he tried to cast a simple spell to supplement the fading glow of the meager fire. Finally he gave up on the spell.

  “It would appear that without a touch of the divine to keep it at bay, the curse cuts a bit deeper,” he surmised.

  “Are you certain that we can continue?” Myranda asked.

  “I'll manage well enou
gh, but I fear it will be a few more days before I can cast a spell,” Deacon replied.

  “Tremendous, then you are completely useless to us,” Ether stated.

  Deacon picked up his bag.

  “I shall endeavor to avoid being a burden to you,” he promised.

  “A lofty goal,” the shape shifter sneered.

  “You are meaner than usual . . . and I didn't think that was even possible,” Ivy remarked.

  Ether silently moved to the mouth of the cave.

  “When the lot of you are through wasting precious time, I will be outside,” Ether growled, stalking out.

  When all had been gathered, and the remains of the previous day's meal was choked down as breakfast, the group set off. The long storm had dumped a remarkable amount of snow on the narrow valley. Whereas it had taken a bit of a climb to reach the mouth of the cave when they sought shelter, they were almost able to step right out of the mouth and onto the fresh snow. It was a thick, icy mix. That was a blessing. The lighter snow would have caused them to sink fairly to their hips as they trudged through it. The dense blizzard snow merely swallowed them to their ankles. They would be slowed, but not by much. They continued north. Lain seemed familiar with the area, knowing without consulting the map that the pass they were making their way through would let out into a wide, deep valley.

  Myranda and Ivy stuck close to Deacon, concerned that he might fall behind. Thankfully, once the fresh air got to him, he perked up, making his own way with only slightly more difficulty than the others. Conspicuously absent, though, was his constant note taking. He'd tried it for the first few minutes, but without his magic to hold the pages flat against the wind and layout his other materials, it was simply too difficult. He finally put the book away after he finished reading Myranda's entries on the trials they'd survived in the cave.

  “I thank you for your thoroughness,” he said between gasps of the thin, freezing air. “I look forward to rewriting it.”

  “Rewriting?” Myranda asked.

  “Oh, not to worry. I intend to use your exact words, but I find that I remember things more completely if I write them myself,” he replied.

  “I don't see how you could possibly manage to write in that shorthand of yours. Honestly, how many languages would one need to know to read it?” Myranda wondered.

  Deacon thought for a moment, replying. “All of them, I suppose, though less of some than others. And I suppose the abbreviations I use will complicate matters as well. Well, regardless, there are at least three people back at Entwell who can read it . . . Not that any of them will. I wouldn't be surprised if they've burned my books by now.”

  “You really believe that?” she asked.

  “Well, there may be one or two who might care about what I may write . . . Azriel, but she'd never leave the arena to see it. Calypso, Solomon. I don't know. I've broken nearly every rule that we'd all agreed to live by,” he said.

  His voice carried regret, as naturally it would, but a dash of realization as well, as though it was just now occurring to him.

  “I will not be remembered well,” he added.

  Myranda placed a hand on his shoulder. He took her hand in his and looked her in the eye. Instantly the regret washed away as he was reminded why he'd done it in the first place.

  “But so be it. This is where I need to be,” he said. “This is where I belong.”

  Ivy marched along beside them. She had heard the tale he’d told when they first met. Of what he'd done to get here. Of what he'd left behind. As she turned it over in her head, slowly she came to realize that all that he'd left behind . . . a home, friends, comfort . . . Things she could never remember having. The memories of the days before she was rescued came in brief, blurred flashes. Until now, she'd never truly felt that she was missing anything, that these people who had found her were all that she would ever need. But now, she felt the tiniest twinge of longing, or at least curiosity. What was it that had been taken from her? Was it something as wonderful as he had given up? She would not trade her new friends for anything, but without so much as a memory of her own name, she felt incomplete.

  “Myranda?” Ivy asked.

  “Yes?” she replied.

  “Do . . . do you think I'll ever remember what it was like before? Who I was, I mean? Any of it?” she asked.

  “In time, I'm sure it will come to you,” Myranda said.

  “With any luck you won't,” Ether remarked.

  “Hey!” Ivy objected.

  “Have you forgotten what happened last time you remembered? You were on the verge of losing control. Better to avoid pushing your weak mind to its limits,” Ether reminded.

  “That was because it was something bad I remembered! There will be good things too!” Ivy asserted.

  “And you would like to learn of all of the wonderful things in your life that were destroyed during that tragedy? Do you believe that will bring you happiness?” Ether asked.

  “I . . . I don't know. I don't care! They are my memories, I want them back!” the confused creature replied with finality.

  She crossed her arms. Ether's words had turned her mild yearning into a burning need. It grew quickly into an obsession. She wanted to know now. No. She needed to know. To satisfy her own curiosity, to prove Ether wrong, just to know. The reason was eclipsed by the need. A tiny nagging worry prodded at her, questioning why it could have come to mean so much so quickly. It was ignored. The smoldering hunger for the knowledge grew.

  They crossed into the valley, and if Ivy had been in a lighter state of mind, she most certainly would have been struck by the beauty. It was left pure white by the fallen snow and sparkling in the light of the moon, which was peeking through a rare break in the constant clouds. The silvery light revealed a wide, crescent shaped plateau leading around one edge. It sloped steeply upwards a few dozen paces to the east, and dropped sharply down into a low, flat bottomed valley to the west. Where they stood, it was perfectly level. Down in the valley, a thin river caught the light of the moon, flowing in a lazy curve, west, east, west, and east, like a pair of cresting waves, with a ring of five trees opposite the trough between. The image stirred a weak memory. It was familiar. As quickly as it had come, though, the notion was gone, a surge of anger sweeping it away, and a thought rushed in to replace it. Ether had existed since the beginning of time, and she'd ended up with no more than any of them, and yet she looked down on them. The thought stuck in her mind. Since the beginning of time . . .

  “Wait a minute! YOU KNOW!” Ivy accused. “You know about what I was!”

  “Don't be a fool,” Ether said.

  “No, no, no. You must know. You've been around forever, right? Either you know about me, what I was before, or you are even more worthless than I am,” the malthrope said, poking Ether in the chest for emphasis.

  All eyes turned to the shape shifter.

  “Myranda, tell this cretin the circumstances of my time in this world in the recent past. You may be able to phrase it in words she might be able to comprehend,” Ether fumed.

  “Oh, I know. Myranda has told me plenty of stories. You were sort of everywhere, able to look but not touch until Myranda and Deacon and his people brought you back. But you did it to make sure you'd know when Chosen, LIKE ME, showed up, right? So I say it again, either you know about me, or you couldn't do the ONE job you claimed to be doing for all of that time,” Ivy said, a flicker of yellow and red betraying an ounce of triumph mixing with her rising anger.

  “Fine . . . I was aware of you, but that was all. You were just a little girl, not worthy of my interest yet,” Ether hissed.

  “A little girl . . . what was I like? Did I have a big family? Was I human or an elf, or . . . “ Ivy asked eagerly.

  “It didn't matter, you were too young to have any attention paid. At the time there were dozens of potential Chosen in the world, each and every one of them more powerful than you. I had my doubts that you were Chosen at all,” Ether explained.

  “Do yo
u at least know my name?” Ivy begged.

  “Names are meaningless. It would have been the last thing I would have sought,” Ether replied.

  “How do you even know it was me?!” the creature raved.

  “You were a prodigy of music, art, all manner of frivolities, but you weren't the only one. Since then the others have been tainted or killed. You were the only one whose fate I was not certain of,” the shape shifter said.

  “I . . . I can't believe it! Even before you knew me you were looking down on me! And because I just wasn't INTERESTING enough for you, you just paid me no mind! You could have known it all, everything! You could have had all of the answers to all of my questions! But you were too small-minded even then to take the time to so much as look in my direction!!! WHAT ABOUT THE MASSACRE!?” Ivy cried, a flare of red surging as she grasped the shape shifter's currently human form by the cloak and pulled her nose to nose. “You didn't think to save anyone, not even me, one of your own PRECIOUS Chosen?”

  “GET YOUR FILTHY CLAWS OFF OF ME!” Ether cried, briefly taking the form of wind and slipping from Ivy's grip. “I realize that weak, damaged bit of fluff that you call a mind cannot long grip even the simplest of facts, but you said it yourself in your own painfully simple way. I could 'look but not touch.' There was nothing I could do.”

  Lain stepped between them.

  “Enough. There is something wrong,” he said.

  “Of course something is wrong. This beast's descent into madness is finally complete!” Ether raved.

  “No. I can't smell anything. Anything at all,” he said.

  The others looked nervously about.

  “The wind is blowing and I can't hear it,” Myranda said, holding up her staff.