by Elí Freysson
They crossed the whole of the town, drawing considerable notice as they went. It was safe to assume that everyone would know of the three of them before evening turned to night.
The inn stood by the river’s edge, next to the bridge. A small marina for rowboats stood nearby, but Irina kept her eyes off it. Bors and Ana were watching her quite closely enough.
A middle-aged man in a mayor’s cap awaited them, looking short of breath and slightly flustered.
“Ah, good evening, honoured chalu of the Bright Lords!” he blurted out through a smile.
There was no officially mandated way of greeting them, and the formality on display was yet more evidence that they were a rare sight here.
“Good evening, Mayor,” Bors said cordially. “We are merely passing through and seek lodgings and food for the night.”
The mayor’s eyes shifted to Irina for a moment and she kept her face entirely still.
“Why, of course,” he said to Ana and Bors. “Our new inn was built only two years ago. You will not find it lacking.”
He cleared his throat.
“I wish to make a request of you, if I may.”
“Speak, mayor,” Bors said.
“A family has been stricken by fever. There are five of them, and herbs are not helping. I understand that you... you have some power of healing.”
Bors shared a glance with Ana.
“We do, mayor. Please, lead the way.”
Bors followed the man and Ana tugged on Irina’s arm.
“Come.”
The inn was new indeed and was in good condition even by that measurement. Irina was glad to see that it clearly didn’t double as the local tavern. Much of the space was taken up by two halls on opposites ends of the building, much of the rest consisted of the kitchen in front of the main door.
The couple who greeted them were surprisingly young, but considerably less awkward than the rest of the locals.
“Good evening, chalu,” the man said as he walked over to greet them.
His southern accent explained his relative ease with Ana and Irina was rather relieved to find herself simply ignored.
“Good evening, innsman. There are three of us and we will be staying a single night.”
“I am honoured,” he said. “The west hall is empty. I can reserve it for your party if you like.”
“That would be good. Thank you.”
Ana walked her into the west hall. The floor was covered with neatly packed bundles of reeds and a thin table ran the length of one of the walls, with a bench set up against it.
“This looks comfortable,” Ana mused idly as she moved Irina to a corner.
“It does,” she agreed as Ana finally undid the rope harness. She then turned Irina around.
“We did agree to spend an evening at the tavern after that little demon search,” the chalu went on.
She held the blue rope up and Irina offered her wrists.
“We could still make good on it, but somehow I don’t think you’re going to be much fun tonight,” Ana said as she secured Irina’s hands in front.
“Be kind, Ana,” Irina said in reply, but kept her tone pleading rather than angry, gazing earnestly into the woman’s eyes.
“I am being as gentle as a nursing mother, Irina,” Ana replied with a sigh and undid the makeshift ribbon in Irina’s hair.
She smoothed out the brown locks and tied them more firmly in place.
“I just dislike feeling as if I’ve suddenly become your enemy.”
“You are... not my enemy,” Irina said, feeling awkward.
“But our mistress is?” Ana said.
The woman was silent as she wrapped the other end of the ilthin around her own wrist.
“Look... I understand it when other people object to being put to service,” she then said softly, keeping their conversation private. “Because they don’t know what it means. But you? You know the peace that comes with the guidance the Bright Lords offer. I don’t understand your resistance. Do you remember Lady Minni?”
“I remember, Ana.”
Irina looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
Ana sighed again.
“I am not being kind, am I?”
She tugged on the ilthin.
“Come. As Bors said, soon none of this will matter. Let’s both take comfort in that.”
Ana brought her to the bench and Irina was relieved to sit down and lean the small of her back against the table. They sat in silence until the innswoman brought three bowls of bread, peas and fish, followed by three mugs of mild beer.
Eating with her wrists tied was a slightly clumsy affair, but simply taking her time let Irina avoid a mess. At least the beer and cooking were both good. Bors arrived once they were both about halfway done and plopped himself down unceremoniously.
“How are you two doing?” he asked and started off with a swig.
“We are doing fine, Bors,” Ana replied. “How did all that go?”
“It was just a simple fever. Nothing our mistress’s power couldn’t treat.”
“Did anything else happen?”
“Just considerable interest.”
Visits by chalu to communities often included at least a peek into the state of local affairs, but with Lady Lumiara herself on the way there was little point.
They finished their meal in silence. There was muted conversation among the few guests on the other side of the building but the innsman kept the three of them separate, as promised.
With nothing to do and clearly nothing more to say there was no reason not to simply lie down for the night. Ana walked her to an outhouse and after that they simply lay down in the packed reeds with blankets. Ana shortened the slack between the two of them and silently directed her to lie in the corner, with herself and Bors hemming her in. There would be no slipping away in the night. Others had tried.
Finding a comfortable position took some effort, which was then followed by the battle to calm her mind enough for sleep. However much her body wanted rest her spirit insisted on fluttering this way and that.
“Ana?” she wound up whispering.
“Yes?” the woman whispered at her back.
“Could you...”
Her voice trailed off.
Ana’s hand touched the side of Irina’s head. A fraction of power flowed from Lady Lumiara, through her bond with Ana, and into Irina. Her spirit stilled, her body went slack and she felt her mind pushed into oblivion. Her last sensation before sleep was Ana lightly stroking her cheek.
# # #
Irina’s wrists and shoulders were sore as she awoke to Ana’s stirring, but yet another healing touch made it all go away.
“Good morning,” she muttered.
“Good morning.”
Breakfast consisted of porridge, bread, and peas. The innswoman provided a tub of warm water, and Ana allowed Irina to wash her face, hands and feet, before wrapping her back up in the rope harness.
With nothing to wait around for the two chalu took hold of her arms again and left the inn.
The morning bustle was just starting up and their little group drew great attention. Irina envied the calm of her companions as she was again on display. The people at least kept their distance and spared them any observations as they crossed the bridge.
There was more traffic on the road than there had been north of the town, and Irina again simply stared forward, neither focusing on nor responding to anything.
She waited to speak until their first stop, beneath one of the simple shelters that dotted Mid-Melgen’s roads at ever briefer interludes.
“Maybe we should just carry her,” Ana suggested as they allowed her to sit down. “We would move faster.”
“I would... appreciate it if you didn’t, Ana,” Irina said, looking up at her captor.
“There is no rush, Ana,” Bors said. “We should intercept our mistress next evening.”
“Patience, patience,” the woman muttered under her breath, then set
aside her pack and sat down as well.
Irina looked at her kayros, sticking out of the pack the way it did.
“I take it you have my ilthin as well?” she asked.
“Of course,” Bors said. “In my own pack.”
“And my tunic?”
“Where did you leave it?” Ana asked.
Irina feigned surprise.
“Right where I left the rest.”
The two chalu looked at each other.
“It was dark and we were in a hurry to find you,” Bors said. “We didn’t see it.”
Irina looked ahead at nothing. If they suspected something then this would be the end of it all.
“Might we go and fetch it?” she asked demurely. “It should be a minor detour at the most.”
They looked at each other again.
“Well... the branching path is only a short distance to the south,” Bors said to Ana. “There really shouldn’t be any delay. What do you say?”
“Hmm.”
Ana touched Irina’s chin and turned her head around to face her. Irina let the helplessness of her situation show in her bearing.
“Well, if there is a risk of delays I do get to carry you,” Ana concluded. “What do you say?”
“I would say that’s fair.”
“Good. Then gather your strength, because I expect you to walk faster from now on.”
“As you say.”
They rose shortly after. Doubt plagued Irina as they walked.
Her ongoing show of submission was making it hard to not simply yield for real. The temptation remained to simply give in to the seemingly inevitable. No one would ever know she’d eyed a chance for escape and left it untested, and she could go back to a life of service, control and those occasional bouts of vague discontent with the collar.
The plan felt weak, predicated on things working out in a very particular fashion. And if she understood the situation correctly every step was taking her closer to Lady Lumiara, even as the chalu took her along the eastern path.
Lady Minni started occupying her thoughts as traffic faded away to nothing. It had been on a trail much like this one that she and Ana had captured the young noblewoman. Their orders had been to bring her to the capital and the journey had taken eight days. Looking back the lady’s development over those days was rather interesting.
She’d started with outrage, invoking her status and her family’s age-old right to the lands seized by the Bright Lords, as well as the peasants who called them home. She’d made two escape attempts, which they’d foiled immediately. The lady had then switched to impotent rage, lashing out at them, calling them leashed dogs and the like. After Ana threatened to gag her Lady Minni had born the walk in silence, with an air of proud martyrdom.
But as the capital grew nearer over the last two days the lady’s demeanour had changed. She’d tried to keep the mask up, but despair had seeped through it.
And why wouldn’t it? She’d been perhaps all of twenty years old. She’d had fierce passions and dreams of retaking the family lands through her own wits, strength and force of personality. It would have been the kind of feat to make it into legend. And if she’d been dealing with ordinary usurpers she might have succeeded. Instead she was marched into slavery. And she’d known perfectly well that a collar awaited her.
Irina and Ana had met the lady a second time this winter. She’d worn the red tunic and carried a kayros and an ilthin same as any of them. She’d greeted the two of them with a hug and Ana had wryly reminded her that she’d predicted just that during the walk.
Lady Minni was right now as happy as Irina had been, in service to Lord Yahnewas. But before that there had been that awful walk. That march towards a life of control.
The afternoon wore on and Irina did her best to keep up with Ana’s demand for greater speed. They did stop once to eat and relieve themselves, both of which Irina again had to do with Ana’s help. Then they continued onwards.
They sky had begun to darken as Irina started to recognise her surroundings. The general lay of the land and the types and size of trees... they weren’t far from the village where the three of them had originally split up. The time had come and Irina slowly clamped her inner lip between two eyeteeth and bit down.
The adventuring life didn’t breed weakness and she was able to keep from making a noise or showing any outward sign of the pain. She forced blood from the wound and then simply kept in it her mouth. Then she started breathing through it, rather than her nose.
It seemed that they had to have mentioned the demon by now, if they had encountered it. Surely when she brought up the bandits they would have made mention of a more serious issue. So surely it still lurked in the area. And now she was breathing out the scent of her blood, which the demon had caught when it clawed her face.
Shame, excitement and fear mixed as she simply continued to walk and breathe. And then she heard it: Something large moving amidst the trees. Bors and Ana heard it too, and both drew their kayrosi.
“Hello?” Bors said.
His response was that awful rattling noise they all recognised. Bors moved in front of them and Ana pushed Irina back. It didn’t play games this time. It simply walked directly towards them, snapping branches, bushes and small trees as it came. The grotesque, elongated figure came into view, radiating violence in its movements.
The runes on the two kayrosi came to life, casting out white light that sent the monster into an immediate rage. It roared and charged. The two chalu reacted with inhuman swiftness. Bors intercepted it and swung his kayros. The demon fell back an instant and Bors unfastened the ilthin from his waist with his free hand.
Ana took hold of the knot between Irina’s shoulder blades and it seemed to melt in accordance with her will. The rope flowed off of Irina like a hand being unclenched and her arms were freed. The woman launched the ilthin at the demon as Bors circled around it.
Irina ran. She dove into the forest and ran.
Behind her the demon roared.
6.
The force of her own weeping wound up surprising her.
It had all started coming out once her feet could no longer carry her and she lacked the strength to withstand the inner storm.
What had she just done? She’d led her companions into danger, to escape a fate she’d once been almost entirely at peace with. She’d lied and taken advantage of a bit of kindness they were willing to show her.
Reason kept reminding her that it was a lesser demon; that they’d split up in the first place due to their faith that a single one of them could readily handle the monster. Reason also reminded her that had the demon prevailed it would have run her down already.
The heart didn’t care about reason. Her heart insisted on tormenting her.
I could have just submitted. I could have just let myself be walked back to Mistress Lumiara.
In time the crying spent her remaining strength and she simply lay prone in the forest bed. But the outpouring had served its purpose and as her energy returned so did clear thought.
What was done, was done. She’d chosen a course of action for herself and the next step was to see it through. She drew in the deepest breath possible, all the way to the bottom of her lungs. Then she let it out in a slow, cleansing exhale and stood up. And she walked.
Her body was stiff again, and with no evening meal in her stomach there was little for her to draw fresh strength from. But she walked. She walked into the full darkness of night and then walked some more.
She fought against the daze that fatigue and recent events threatened to sink her mind into, and in time her sense of direction proved its worth. She reached the road.
There she finally allowed herself to collapse again, but had to deny herself the relief of true relaxation. It would mean sleep and there was no time to waste. From this point on her plans hinged on a single wager: That Bors and Ana wouldn’t expect her to simply use the most direct and obvious route north.
She continued walking.
She paced herself with stops and never attempted to move above a plod. Fatigue became pain, as it had so many times before. Although those times her spirit had felt less like a lead weight.
Still she pressed on.
Now without even a stick or the comfort of company the deep night subjected her to its various fears and possibilities. She thought of wolves and ogres. She thought of Camdyn’s bandits, an aberration of the peace the Bright Lords had brought to the rest of the land. She thought of her friends and her mistress and her other friends.
Discipline could only endure so long in the face of fatigue and by the time she heard the river din her mind had almost entirely succumbed. She’d nearly forgotten her name and what she was even doing. But reduced to her basic elements as she was the simple thought of escape remained.
The light of dawn could not be far off as she stumbled back across the bridge by Vyslak, but she managed to trot down to the marina without making a noise.
She mostly had to feel around to find what she was looking for, but she managed to get herself on board one of the small boats and untie it from the mooring.
Pushing it out into the current felt like a titanic effort, but she made it. Then she just lay down into the keel, feeling the gentle rocking.
She really was reduced to her basic elements. And one of those was a desire to return to her mistress. To her service, and to her companions. And now this boat, with just a little bit of effort on her part, would bear her almost all the way to the border.
# # #
The Junmarch it was called, the small land between West, Mid and East. The residents credited their relative independence to their own long history of grit and courage, and would hear nothing about it being due to none of the three kingdoms being willing to see another one seize it.
It stretched out before her in the near-noon sun as she crested the Ridge of Kaisen; a land without mountains or thick forests but absolutely dotted with hillocks.
She turned around, spying the river in the distance. She did feel a little bad about stealing the boat, but honour was easy when one wasn’t a fugitive.
