by Philip Blood
“Mara, what was that you said about the Wraiths today?” Aerin asked.
Her lips pouted slightly for a moment as she marshaled her thoughts. “You have read a great deal about the wars, haven’t you?”
“Yes, my father had books about the old wars.”
“So tell me what you know about the Wraiths.”
“They are evil men who wield vast magical powers. They live in the wastelands and rule over the Togroths. They want to kill everyone in the Kingdom.”
Mara smiled, “Is that it?”
Aerin was a little indignant at her question, “I could tell you the full history of the final war.”
Mara laughed and Aerin felt, even more, ire. At his look she put a hand on his to calm him, “I’m not laughing at you, Aerin, but at the fools who named it the ‘Final war’... final indeed.”
Aerin relaxed, mollified.
“I’m sure you could recite the entire, uh, history of the sordid affair if I requested, but that is not what I meant. I want to know what you know of the Wraith’s power. What is their power? How are they created? Where do they get this magical power of which you speak?”
Aerin considered for a moment and then said, “Well, I always assumed it was hatred. They hate everything and their hatred is used to form spells.”
Mara shook her head, denying what he said. “That is not quite right, Aerin. You see one person’s hatred is not enough to do more than petty damage in the world. One man might hate enough to kill another man, but that is little evil compared to the Wraith's power."
They pondered her words for a moment and then Aerin asked, "Is there any way to resist a Wraith's power of hatred?"
Mara nodded and replied, "It isn't easy. If they can find any hatred in your heart then they have a hold on you, but a strong mind that can keep focused on another emotion can resist their power. However, it takes training and will power to withstand a Wraith's attack on your mind. You see they leach the power of hatred and gather it up. They are a deadly foe, for the more you hate them, the more powerful they become. But you were correct when you said they hate everything. To become a Wraith and wield the cumulative power of hate it must be the foremost emotion that rules your life.”
“Is this cumulative power true of other emotions as well?” Aerin asked.
“Ah, now you touch on an underlying truth. Yes, all emotions have power, though not all manifest in the same manner. Emotions power your life and every choice you make. There are many emotions and some types are stronger than others. Hatred and fear are amongst the strongest, but jealousy can be a deadly force as well.”
Aerin considered her words, “I have heard of Wraiths and the Dreadmaster, they use hate and fear. Who wields the power of jealousy?”
“Jealousy is too hard to control, many of those afflicted by it are or were in love and this combination is too volatile to control easily. In the end, jealousy leads to hatred, which is the root of that power.”
“What about love? Isn’t it a powerful emotion?” Aerin asked.
Mara nodded, “Indeed, at times too powerful. Love is a power that can cause great joy and great anguish; it is probably the most dangerous emotion to deal with. Still, great evil and good have been done with it and in its name. Take the case where a man loves a woman, but she loves another man as well. Jealousy is fueled by the power of love, and that, as I've explained, leads to hatred. Great deeds of evil may then be done in the name of love, although years later when the jealousy and hatred have dulled only the regrets for what they wrought remain.”
Aerin considered all the emotions he could think of for awhile. “If hate and fear are the most powerful evil emotions, what is the most powerful good emotion?”
“No guess? All right I’ll tell you, friendship. It is the most constant, runs the deepest and lasts the longest. Hatred can come on strong and be so powerful it ruins a person’s life but given enough time it dulls. Fear can leave you quivering unable to move, but strong fear cannot be easily sustained. Fear too much for too long and your heart will just give out. Fear is the second most powerful emotion, but it never runs as deep as friendship. You can lose your fear in a moment, even if it has been with you for years, but friendships are not so fickle. In friendship there is an invisible bond; one friend can help sustain the other through this bond.”
“Like NexLords!” Aerin exclaimed, “They have close friends that bond to them.”
Mara nodded with a twinkle of amusement in her eye.
Aerin paused to think for a moment. “You said fear is not as lasting as friendship, but I could be afraid of something my whole life.”
Mara nodded, “And some people are, but let me give you a simple example. Were you afraid of the Togroths when they attacked your family?”
Aerin bowed his head and said quietly, “Yes, more than anything.”
“And are you afraid of them killing you right this minute?”
“No, they can’t get to me here in this tavern with Tocor nearby.”
“You see, fear comes and goes. Now, is Gandarel your friend?”
“Yes!”
“And tomorrow, when he laughs at you when you trip and fall, will you no longer be his friend?”
“Well, I would be cross with him.”
“True, but would you lose your friendship for him if that happened?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“So, what would it take, what crime could he do that you would not support him, try to help him and be there for him?”
“Nothing, I guess, I’m his friend.”
Mara smiled, “Of course, and I would expect nothing less of you. There, you see the difference?”
Aerin nodded, “I guess you are right.”
Now Mara laughed softly, “I am always right, but do people listen? Now did you have any other questions about the Wraiths?”
"You have told us that a strong person can resist the Wraith's power, is there any way to destroy them?
Mara nodded slowly. "To become a Wraith everything except hatred is destroyed, this includes even their life."
Lor spoke derisively, "You're saying Wraiths are dead men walking around?"
"Or women, we hate just as strongly as men. It is true; their hate alone animates the corpse that was their living body before they were turned."
"If they're dead, how come they don't stink and rot?" Dono demanded.
Mara nodded. "You jest, Dono, but you are not far from the truth. Their bodies must be preserved, so they use a treatment that is both chemical and magical. It keeps them from deteriorating, but it makes them a little hard, like wood. They also tend to smell of corruption, though this can be masked with fragrant ointments. This treatment has an Achilles heel; they must avoid water at all costs. Even the proximity disrupts their power. Direct contact with water is deadly to their body, though not the hatred that animates the dead tissue."
Gandarel laughed. "You mean to tell me that a bucket of water is all that it takes? Then why is anyone afraid of these things?"
"They are fast and strong and their powers to control your mind through any hatred you harbor make them deadly enough, Gandarel."
Gandarel didn't like the slight rebuff in Mara's tone, so he changed the subject by calling down the table, “Hey, Aerin, oh Grand Master of Dull Jokes, since you are now of such exalted status why don’t you tell us which is the best weapon to take into battle?”
Mara answered him instead, “If you can answer your own question correctly, Gandarel, I will consider you ready to take your test as well.”
Gandarel glanced toward the door, where two of his Guardsmen stood at sentry position; both wore the customary swords of the guard. He considered choosing the sword, as it was his favorite weapon, but something in Mara’s crafty eyes told him an easy answer was not going to suffice.
He decided to try and outguess her, “There is no ‘best’ weapon.”
Mara started to say something but stopped when Gandarel continued.
“It
is different for each person. For Tocor, the staff is the best weapon while for Yearl it is his sticks. For me, the best weapon is the sword.”
“Actually, you are wrong. The best weapon is the same for everyone,” Mara corrected him.
“If that is the case then it would be a sword,” he answered, deciding he should have gone with his first choice.
“The best weapon is your mind,” Mara explained.
Gandarel looked indignant, “Oh come on! You know that is not fair. We were discussing battle; you can’t hit someone with your mind!”
“Perhaps not figuratively, but given the choice of facing three imbeciles with swords or one genius with his bare hands, I know what I would choose,” Mara countered.
“But I’m talking about three guys with swords attacking you, certainly then you would need a weapon!”
“Agreed, I always go armed with my mind.”
“Fat lot of good that would do you if you had to parry a sword thrust,” Gandarel said with a grin.
“Why do you say that? There are objects aplenty within this room for an agile mind to fight with, and none of them are swords, daggers, clubs or staffs,” Mara stated.
“Like what?” Gandarel said, calling her bluff.
“This loaf of bread, my chair, this candle, any of these mugs, the floor...” Mara pointed as she went through her list.
Gandarel interrupted, “That loaf of bread is a weapon?” He pointed at the offending object on the table between them. The bread was a forearm in length with a golden colored hard crust and thick doughy interior.
“Your mind is the weapon; it can use anything as a tool.”
At that moment, one of the four rough looking bodyguards seated at the table next to Mara stood up to go to the bar. He was holding a mug of ale. In standing his sword caught under the bench, and that caused him to lurch toward Mara and he sloshed some of his ale onto Mara’s shoulder.
“Speaking of imbeciles with swords!” Mara snapped in irritation, wiping at the stain on her dress.
“Who you callin’ an imbisilly?” the man growled, leaning his rather large bulk over Mara in a threatening way.
Gandarel’s Guardsmen started forward out of the shadows, but Gandarel motioned them back with a gesture. “So, Sen Mara, you are telling me you could take this man with your mind and the objects you described? Or would you prefer my Guardsmen’s swords to back you up?”
Aerin noticed Tocor putting his mug down carefully in the center of the table.
Mara looked up at the large brute above her and sighed as she said, “I would like to apologize...”
“’Bout time, old woman, I would have hated to have had ta toss ya out onto the street,” the big brute growled.
“...for the bruises and contusions you are about to receive, but consider that your short pain will be an invaluable example to illustrate an important lesson for this boy.”
His answer was short, to the point and not very witty, “Huh?”
The old woman rose slowly to her feet and faced the man. “You are a slob, you smell, and I would tell you that you had the manners of a swine if that wasn’t insulting the poor creatures.”
The man looked to his friends in disbelief, “Did this prune faced old wench just call me a pig?”
One of the seated men answered him, “Yeah, Taunk, I think she did.”
“I’ll teach ya, bitch!” he growled and tried to backhand her across the mouth with a meaty paw.
Mara simply stepped back out of range, letting the hand pass by a finger’s width from her nose.
Aerin started to stand, but Tocor fixed him with a sharp gaze and said, “Sit down, Aerin.”
“I see that you have no qualms about striking a woman,” Mara noted, “And unfortunately for you, I have no qualms about striking brutes.” Without looking down, Mara grabbed a mug off the table by its thick handle, and with a sweeping gesture, she raised it in the air. In a loud voice that carried to the entire tavern, she said, “I propose a toast! Here is to justice...”
The brute regained his balance from his missed swing just in time to gawk at the mug Mara held in the air. At which point Mara doused the ale in his face. When he flinched she backhanded the heavy clay mug across the side of his head, shattering the mug.
The large man staggered from the sudden impact, shaking his head like a wounded dog as if that would make the sharp pain go away.
Mara reached back with both hands for her chair as if to sit, but set the front right leg on the man’s foot, before plopping down with all her weight. As she sat down she reached for the loaf of bread on the table and then tore off the end.
As her weight pressed down through the chair leg and onto his foot the man howled in pain, doubling over toward Mara. He grabbed the table for support as he tried to pull his foot out from under the offending chair leg.
Mara quickly squeezed the piece of bread in her fist, and with a short hard thrust, stuffed the thick dough in his open mouth.
Gagging on the bread, the man managed to pull his foot out from under the chair, just as Mara leaned the burning candle over and spilled some hot wax on the back of his hand, where he gripped the table edge.
The man sucked in a breath of pure dough, as he tried to inhale to scream, and started choking for air. He released the table and grabbed at his throat, his face starting to turn a nice shade of blue.
Mara stood up and walked slowly around the choking man. She arrived behind him just as his legs started to go rubbery from the lack of oxygen. She grabbed him around the waist, placing her hands in his stomach area, and then pulled up and backward sharply. The bread flew out of his mouth with explosive force, striking the astounded Gandarel in the face. The unfortunate Taunk doubled over onto the table top, gasping in a wheezing gulp of much-needed air.
Mara released him, stepped to his side and grasped the back of his head by his unruly hair. With a short economic yank and thrust, she bounced his head off the hardwood table and let him fall to the ground. Before his body had completely come to rest, she turned with a confident look and faced the unconscious man’s three friends. She took a step toward them and all three flinched, starting up from their chairs to get away from the old woman who had just incapacitated their large companion.
“If you stand up I’ll have to do something,” she said simply. “If you want it bandied about that it took all three of you big brave men to fight one old woman... well, then by all means get up.”
All three of the burly men froze half out of their chairs.
Mara spoke in a friendly tone, “I have no quarrel with any of you unless you wish to be as rude as your friend?”
Glancing at each other the three men slowly sat back down.
“He had it comin’, if ya asks me,” one of them said. The other two nodded and finally relaxed when Mara gave them a small smile and a nod, then turned back to her table.
Mara pulled her chair back into position and sat down gracefully.
Gandarel and the other boys were all in shock. Finally, Gandarel said, “Shouldn’t we get out of here before he wakes up?”
“And spoil our celebration? I should say not. Besides, he won't be feeling much like fighting for awhile,” Mara said after glancing over the edge of the table to check on the brute, he was out cold on the floor.
“I guess she showed you,” Lor noted to Gandarel with a grin.
Aerin finally got his mouth working, “How did you do that?”
Mara spoke calmly, “I thought ahead of him, that’s all, it wasn’t magic. I just used my head to think, while he used his to pound wood. Your mind is the weapon, Gandarel, don’t forget it.”
Gandarel swallowed and then nodded his acceptance of the lesson.
Aerin considered Mara quietly during the rest of the meal. She was far lither and stronger than he would ever have suspected from an old woman, and though he didn't know her age for sure, he started thinking he had guessed wrong to begin with. She had to be younger than he had thought the day he had fi
rst met her when his parents were killed. Then he had thought her in her seventies, but now he revised his estimate to somewhere in her sixties. He wondered how a woman came to know so much about fighting; it puzzled him.
The man was still out on the floor sometime later when Mara paid the bill and they left.
Chapter Six
"Not all his lessons will involve weapons, and not all his classrooms involve the teacher."
- From the Prophecies of Gold
Ten days later, Aerin was just finishing his warm-ups before starting weapon practice, when he noticed a very sleepy Lor arriving late.
“Hard night?” he asked playfully.
Lor scowled, and with uncharacteristic irritation replied, “What I do at night is none of your business.”
Aerin was taken aback by his friend’s tone. “Hey, you don’t have to bite my head off! I was only mentioning that you looked tired. I didn’t mean anything by...”
“Then just drop it, like I said, it is my business.”
Aerin looked over at Dono, who shrugged to show his lack of understanding as well.
Puzzled, Aerin continued his warm-ups.
Tocor soon had them working on drills with practice swords, and matched up Lor and Gandarel for a bout in the sand square.
Lor’s skill with the sword had improved over the months, and though technically Gandarel was better, the two of them were a close match. Today, however, Lor seemed to have lost a step. The third time that Gandarel scored a full hit on Lor, this one a bruising blow to the upper arm, Tocor stepped in and stopped the bout.
“You don’t seem to be concentrating today. Perhaps you should stop and practice your defensive sequences, alone,” Tocor suggested in his deep voice.
“Whatever, I’m done,” Lor declared and stuck the practice sword into the sand and then marched off out of the courtyard. Aerin started to follow, but Tocor called him back.
“Let him be, Aerin. Sometimes people need a chance to cool down, you can be his friend later.”
Aerin watched Lor depart while wondering what was wrong with the normally irrepressible youth.
