Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  Although the masseuse had stopped paying attention long ago, he was still looking interested. Haniel watched them for a moment and realized that she was probably about to have to direct the conversation so that Bronzino did not get his feelings hurt by the other's inattentiveness or decide that the thing to do was explain in more excruciating detail.

  "Gonna go make sure that our well mannered friend isn't getting murdered by a footpad," she said.

  She asked the bartender for a glass of water, and took it outside. She found Chattiel in a dark corner standing over a red puddle, handed him the water, and studied him.

  "It's this cheap wine," he said, "I'm not used to it. Vechtin always had much better wine. I don't know how you can stand it."

  "Hm…my post before the capital was up north, dwarves and beer, so it's always seemed fine to me. Anything will do you wrong when you guzzle it. Rinse some water in your mouth and spit it out."

  He looked at her angrily, but did as she said.

  "You want me to get you back home?"

  "I could manage, I know the way. It's not like it's my first time ever in Kroywen."

  "I'd walk with you all the same. You've had enough to drink that I don't like to leave it to chance; and you're one of us now—it's my duty to make sure you're all right."

  "One of you?"

  Haniel nodded.

  "You drink cheap wine and talk to dragars and idiots. I won't be like that."

  Haniel weighed hitting him. It would make her feel better, and he deserved it, but it would probably make him sick again, and in the long run make everything more difficult. She rebuked herself for thinking so rationally, and resolved to get drunker.

  "I'm sorry, but you haven't got much say in the matter. You belong to the Order, and the part of the Order you are in right now is us. We drink what we can afford, and talk to whoever will listen to us."

  "It's hardly fitting for a wizard."

  "What would you know? To hell with this, we're going home." She left Chattiel and returned to the tavern. Bronzino and the masseuse were still talking. "I'm dragging that ass home."

  The masseuse stood up quickly. "I should go as well."

  Bronzino sighed. "I should probably get to bed soon myself. Is he okay?"

  Haniel shrugged. "He's still an ass. You could bring him another glass of water."

  Bronzino went to the bar for the water, leaving Haniel alone with the masseuse for a moment.

  "If you've gotten the impression that the wizards of the Order are all either tedious or rude, you're not wrong."

  "Well, some of them seem to be both fascinating and pretty."

  They had moved incrementally closer, and their mouths hovered near each other.

  Haniel pulled away. "You don't know."

  "Probably for the best, with the downturn in my business, I can hardly afford to start seeing a girl."

  "Indeed. And I've been told that I need to start cultivating more expensive tastes."

  He told her where his stand was, if she ever wanted to find him, and she followed Bronzino out the door.

  After coming home from the tavern, Haniel lay in bed wondering whether she should have slept with the masseuse. She had not found him especially attractive and he had impressed her as fairly stupid—but he had seemed to want to sleep with her, and based on his profession, probably knew what to do with his hands. Haniel was tipsy enough that the last facts seemed very significant, and it was an intermediate stage of drunkenness, where sleep eluded her. She solved this by drinking a large mug from the stone bottle of grain spirits that she kept hidden under her bed for precisely these emergencies.

  She dreamed of a little girl with yellow hair that she had never met, although everything about her was achingly familiar. It was a dream that she had had intermittently since she had come to the Order, and while the girl had not aged, could never age, Haniel's feelings about the girl and the dream itself had evolved constantly, and considerably. It had not started out as a pleasant relationship and the little girl had spent Haniel's adolescence weeping, looking at her with unbearable reproach, or screaming at her in anger. Over the last year or so, however, something generally more palatable had emerged. Haniel and the little girl would walk in a meadow sometimes, and seemed, at least, resigned to each other.

  They were not in the meadow, after the night at the tavern, but rather in a small hut, and Haniel was instantly nervous. The dreams that had happened in the girl's home were among the worst, and Haniel knew every corner of the cottage, from the worn but clean sheets on the bed, to the friendly smell of drying herbs by a window, to the cheerful statue of a local god; she knew the girl's home as well as a prisoner knows his cell, and she hated it more.

  Now, they were not in the girl's cottage but in a similar one. It was slightly bigger, much messier, and none of the things that Haniel knew to look for were there. The girl was sitting in a corner, also confused, and sniffling. The cottage seemed bizarrely familiar and Haniel wandered around looking at things for a long time before she realized: the cottage was hers, it was where she, Haniel, had grown up. The girl's crying grew louder.

  "You should be happy," Haniel said crossly. "I know you better than I know me. I don't know what more I could do for you."

  "Just don't do it! That's all!" the little girl said suddenly. "Today is the day, don't do it!"

  The girl was right, it was the day. "No," said Haniel. "It doesn't work like that. I already did it. We've been over that for thirteen, fourteen years now. It's done. I have to do it." Haniel started to walk to the door.

  "No you don't!" The girl threw herself at Haniel, grabbed her leg and tried to drag her backwards. Haniel kicked her savagely in the face; her little nose erupted in blood, and her mouth in a howl of grief, not pain. Haniel went out and closed the door on the girl's sobbing. In the distance, on the road, a man was approaching, and for an awful, unforgivable, moment, Haniel's heart filled with joy.

  The feelings of guilt and sorrow that she woke up to made her mild hangover barely noticeable. She made her way sullenly through the day, mostly sifting through letters sent to the Order for promising Controversies. When she was done, she returned to the Adepts' quarters, picked up her hammer and knife, and went on to a nearby gym where she would sometimes go to train.

  The gym was small, generally shabby, and not especially competitive. The capital's most fearsome and respected warriors went elsewhere. Most of the regulars were retired soldiers who wanted to keep in practice for old times' sake.

  It was relatively empty when Haniel arrived. The main room was a large open space with a few vaguely human shaped scarred wooden figures scattered throughout. Haniel stretched in a corner and then took out her weapon.

  The masseuse/spy had been right: she had gotten it when she was too young and small, and for the first months that she had it, her practice had merely consisted of picking the hammer up and putting it down, until it moved quickly enough through her hands.

  The hammer was small, but heavy. The shaft was made of metal, a little less than a foot long, with leather wrapped around the handle. The head was double-sided, with symmetrical flat striking surfaces, made of a slightly heavier metal than the shaft. The hammer was black, and covered with irregularly placed runes, some of which had been forged in when it was first made, and some of which had been scratched in or welded on over the years.

  Now, Haniel hoisted it up and down a few times, tossed it between her hands, and then swung it in front of her, effortlessly. She had looked up some of the runes; some she had been unable to find or identify; others she strongly suspected of being mistranslated by the scribes of the Order.

  The bottom of the shaft was clipped onto one end of an eight-foot long chain. The links of the chain were of slightly irregular size, sometimes marked with runes, and sometimes not. The unevenness of the chain had made learning to use it difficult, and Haniel still regularly pinched her fingers on the links. But over the years, she had intimately learned its quirks and eccentri
cities. Now she could pick it up and swing it without effort, while even an experienced fighter, handling it for the first time, would be as likely to hit themselves as an opponent.

  She swung the hammer in an ever-widening circle over her head. Eventually she released it and sent it flying at one of the targets, where it bounced off, leaving a satisfying dent. She wound in the chain, swung the hammer again, and struck the target again; then she managed to wrap it around one of the target's arms. She stepped over nimbly to the target and stabbed it with the knife.

  The knife was attached to the other end of the chain, and was designed for harvesting grain as well as fighting. It had a foot and a half long handle, with an eight inch curved blade that would fold out and lock at a ninety-degree angle from the handle. Haniel's techniques with the knife were less developed—but as she thought of it, technique was not all that important. The knife was for killing; if she ever had to use it, the important thing would be the willingness to stick it into someone else—the finer points on how to hold it were probably not that big a deal.

  A young woman who worked at the gym approached Haniel as she untangled the weapon from the target. Haniel sighed, anticipating another dispute about gym dues. Haniel's position was that, as a member of the Order, she did not have to pay them, and while sometimes the owners of the gym accepted this, other times they did not.

  "If you are interested, there is a man who is looking for a match."

  Haniel was relieved. "Does he know what I fight with?"

  "Yes, that's why he's interested."

  "What's he got?"

  "A sword."

  "Normal rules?"

  "Yes. You must wrap your own blades, and inspect your opponent's. I'll judge. He will wear a training helmet and you may as well."

  "That's all right, unless his blade is very heavy."

  "It isn't. I'll sound a gong when I judge there has been a fatal strike, or if either of you are really hurt. Attempts to seriously injure your opponent will mean the stoppage of the match."

  "Sounds good."

  The woman handed her some fabric and string, and she wrapped the fabric around the knife's blade and tied it in place, so that the blade, while being the same shape as normal, could not cut. She handed the hammer and knife to the woman, and followed her through a door at the back of the main room.

  They were in another, slightly smaller open room. A tall, wiry man in his mid-forties with a narrow face and black goatee stood on the other end, holding a bulky training helmet by his side. The woman from the gym went to the man with the helmet with Haniel's hammer and knife, he inspected them closely and then handed it back to the woman, along with a sword, its blade also wrapped and rendered harmless. The woman brought both weapons to Haniel. Haniel looked at the sword somewhat carelessly and judged it safe.

  "He wants to discuss a wager."

  "Is he offering me odds?" Haniel smiled dryly.

  "No. But he insisted that you fight for a gold coin, if you won't go higher."

  "One gold coin."

  The woman nodded and took back the sword. She handed it to the man and walked over to a gong that stood at the far end of the room. The man put on his helmet, and he and Haniel stepped into the middle of the room.

  As they did, Haniel began to panic. The man across from her was a wizard. And he had successfully used his power to prevent her from realizing it, until that very moment.

  11

  There was thunder outside, but inside the tent, he was warm, and no matter how hard the rain beat the roof, it would never make it through. His dad sat among the furs and told a story about the fox who bargained with dragons, making funny noises whenever one of the dragons got angry with the fox's tricks and tried to bite or stomp it.

  His mom was sewing metal bands inside her leather jerkin like she couldn't hear the story at all, except Joti knew she could, because when his dad roared and bluffed to show the dragons' wrath, she always smiled.

  As Odobo neared the end of the story—the dragons had pushed the fox to the edge of a mountain precipice—he stood and stalked about the tent. Joti leaned closer. So the fox jumped off of the mountain, his dad said, and then he paused, and each moment of waiting was agony.

  His dad grinned, ready to finish the tale. But Joti couldn't remember how the end came. And then there was no tent, and no mom, and no father, either.

  He was alone, and he was falling.

  His head lolled. Something hard beneath his skull. Sunlight on his closed eyes. He opened them. The light was gray because of the haze but it still felt so bright the vomit rose in his throat. His head pounded. Wooden posts on all sides. It stank like infection. And like someone had messed themselves. He had the horrifying thought that it was him, and then his eyes closed and he sank so deeply that even the pain felt far away.

  This time, there was nothing but blackness.

  A while later—he had the feeling it was lots longer than a normal sleep—he could feel the wood beneath his head again. He drew himself into a ball. His mouth was so dry it was stuck together. He worked his numb tongue around his cheeks. His eyes were gummed shut. He picked gunk from his lashes until he could pry his eyelids apart. His head thudded with each heartbeat. His limbs were sore and so was his torso. His trousers were half damp with urine.

  The floor rumbled beneath him. He opened his eyes. He lay inside a cart on the move. The walls were slatted and the roof was solid wood. Several others huddled in the straw scattered across the floor. They were grimy, and most were asleep, but he recognized them as others from his tribe. None of them were Ridik family. No Drez, either.

  One of them was Hokk, an old man who'd sometimes watched the Half Soldiers wrestle, criticizing their poor form.

  "Where—?" Joti cleared his throat. "Where are we?"

  Hokk's eyes darted to the wagon's driver. "Shut up."

  "Where are the—?"

  "Shut your fucking face before they split it open!"

  "Hoy!" The wagon rocked as the driver drew it to a halt.

  A soldier jumped down from the seating boards and stalked to the side of the cart. "No talking. Who talks?"

  No one answered. The soldier curled his lip from his lower fangs and jabbed his spear into the wagon, sending a girl named Uku scurrying.

  "Tell who talks or you all get beaten."

  Hokk lifted a quivering arm and pointed at Joti. The soldier flung open the back of the wagon and grabbed Joti's ankle, dragging him toward the exit. Joti drove his heel into the soldier's nose. The man didn't so much as swear. He yanked Joti outside, dropped him in the damp earth, and beat him until he passed out. At the end, he didn't even feel any pain.

  ~

  For a while, his memory became a gray, undefined mush. An overcooked stew of sludge. Rarely, something solid enough to sink his teeth into stirred to the surface:

  Standing naked in a courtyard while a thin, scowling woman splashes a bucket of cold water over him and scrubs him hard with a hog-bristle brush.

  Barefoot on a wooden platform, splinters in his soles, an audience of cold eyes watching, and he's afraid he'll be hanged, and he pees himself. They all laugh.

  Walking down a dusty street. He's in the company of two grown men in uniform, and an old woman in a dazzling white dress, and three others dressed in rags like himself. To their right, a scaffold rises forty feet high, bracketing a gigantic stone foot and lower leg. A figure falls from the top of the scaffold, thuds into the street, and doesn't move. No one goes to help.

  Sweeping a shaded courtyard, and a beetle appears on the setts, and he stops and waits for it to make it to the other side before he starts to sweep again.

  Things seemed to cohere all at once, like climbing out of the murble-burble of a swiftly running river onto a calm, sunny shore. He was in a thing like a tent, except much larger than any tent he'd ever seen, and instead of canvas or hide, its walls were made out of hard wood and stone blocks. It was too cold in the mornings and too warm during the afternoons. He was doi
ng a lot of scrubbing and sweeping of the floors, which were paved like the Great Chief's Road.

  An old woman ruled the tent. Somehow, he knew that she liked it when he swept, so he did a lot of sweeping. There were others who wore trousers and vests that were as clean and well-stitched as a chieftain's, but despite their fancy dress, they served meals and showed even better-dressed people around the house.

  He spent most days scrubbing until a man with a disapproving mouth told him it was time to stop. He slept in a dank room in the basement with another boy who cried when he thought Joti was asleep.

  It was like this for a lot of days.

  Sometimes, he remembered things that didn't make much sense: a pretty girl with a staff; a mountain burning as brightly as the sun; a cold rushing river streaked with red. The memories frightened him. He tried not to have them.

  At first, it rained on most days. After a while it got hot and stopped raining at all. Summer. The city was stifling. He wanted waterfall-fed pools and the shade of trees, but there were no pools and not even many trees. The air smelled like dung and burning coal.

  One day, like normal, he woke at dawn. Like normal, he dressed and got his brush and his broom and his bucket. It had been windy the day before and the courtyard was full of leaves. He swept them into piles and dumped the piles in the midden.

  Halfway through his sweep, his broom stirred something red. He bent down and picked up a spitebird feather.

  Rain pounding the forest into muck. A girl fording a river. Drez. He didn't know who she was, but he knew he'd done the most important thing in the world: he'd saved her.

  "Why have you stopped?" Behind him, the old woman crossed her spindly arms. Her lips compressed into a dark green line. "Tell me you haven't shit yourself again."

  "No," Joti said. He frowned and touched the seat of his pants. "I don't think so."

  He knew the old woman's name was Fere. She had the snow white hair of the Gru. At once, he knew where he was: a Gru-Dak city. The kind his dad had told him stories about. Thousands of people crammed into a little place, operating machines that spewed fire, building monuments so big they made the gods jealous.