by Liam Reese
“Well, they’re monks.”
“But they’re giant.”
“Yes,” said Ruben, “so they are doubly dangerous. The Rindian Order has sent representatives to every war fought in this kingdom since they were established, and their warriors are known as incredibly fierce. They haven’t actually been trained in the monastery for hundreds of years — it is a monastery, after all — but the reputation still stands. I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with any of the religious orders — many Forged have quite a bit, given that they are frequently rumored to be cursed, but perhaps you’ve been able to avoid all that — but the word that I would most likely apply to them is aggressive. They could easily kick you in the face just by lifting up their foot a small amount. They are a recipe for disaster that cannot go wrong. Or cannot go right. Whichever is more accurate.” He stopped again and blinked near-sightedly for a moment at a tree. “Did I say recipe for disaster? I meant adventure.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” said Thorn. In his mind he ran through all the possible scenarios and opportunities he might have to jettison the entire group. He could, of course, simply slip off into the darkness. He knew the woods better than they ever possibly could; they would never find him.
The small voice inside him said, Yes, and you’d just prove even further that the Forged deserve the accusations hurled at them. Leaving in the time of trouble.
He squirmed a little. He thought he was doing so only mentally, but the legendarian turned his squint from the tree onto him, and his brow furrowed.
“Ants?” he said.
“Er,” said Thorn, startled. “Yes. Big red ones,” he added, which caused the legendarian to skip an extra step or two in alarm, hastily brushing at first one shoulder, then the other.
“Can’t abide ants,” said Ruben, not looking the least bit embarrassed by his own reaction. “They bite. I must be allergic.”
“Why is that?”
“Because when they bite me, it hurts.”
Thorn had a specific reply he wanted to say to that, but they came across the others so quickly that they nearly stumbled into them. Irae was in the lead. She had stopped and was looking back at them. In the shaft of moonlight, she looked regal and cool — quite different from how she looked most times. The light silvered her hair and shadowed her eyes, and her chin lifted imperiously.
Then he thought, Moonlight. They had finally reached the outskirts of the woods, and light sifted down more strongly through the sparser branches of the treetops.
Irae waited for Thorn to approach, and then said quietly, “I thought it best that we are all on the same page, so to speak. We will continue on the road for another hour, and then make camp when we come across a suitable place. I will lead the way. We must be as silent as possible while we travel.”
“Of course.”
“Which means,” she carried on, “no more chit-chat with the legendarian.”
It was on the tip of Thorn’s tongue to protest, to claim his innocence — chit-chat indeed! They had been having a serious discussion about serious things — but the glint of her eyes in the moonlight served as a warning. She was clearly in no mood for argument.
He swallowed his words and nodded mutely instead.
“Good,” she said. “I’m glad we understand each other. Stay close to me and keep an eye out for any other travelers. Let’s stay out of trouble, shall we?”
If she only knew where they were headed — but it was the bard’s responsibility to tell her, not Thorn’s. He closed his mouth even more firmly over the words. It was true, anyway. Regardless of where they were headed, right now they were on a highway notorious for bandit activity, and the last thing that he needed to do was start an argument that attracted any unwanted attention.
The countryside was quiet around them, which should have been a good sign but struck Thorn as rather ominous. There should have been more night-birds calling, more sounds from small animals in the underbrush. Not that there was much underbrush for small animals to shelter in; this side of Deen the forest was nearly as barren as the area they had come through some days ago.
Not so long ago, after all — he felt a twinge of longing for the comfort of his own woods, of his little hut, of his simple, lonely life. Now here he was with a rebel queen, her few loyal supporters, and a legendarian, going through bandit-infested country to reach the mountains of dangerous giant monks.
If someone like Riskel didn’t compose an epic poem about this, he’d write a very stern letter. He wasn’t sure who he could complain to about that, but it would be very stern indeed.
Irae led the pace, quickly and quietly, all of them in neat single file along the edge of the road. After an hour’s tense travel at high alert, it was an unexpected relief when she called a halt at last and allowed them to tumble their packs to the ground underneath a large tree well off the side of the road. Graic, who had been hobbling along on Karyl’s arm, sank down immediately on top of two of the packs and refused to move, despite Karyl’s attempts to stir her so he could retrieve supplies from underneath her.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” said Irae sternly. “We aren’t setting up house. We move again before dawn.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
It seemed to slip out before Karyl even realized what he had said. They all froze, and turned cautious glances to the legendarian, who appeared cheerfully ignorant of the implications. He was busily unpacking a compendium, larger than the ones he had removed previously, from his overburdened bag. He sat down on the ground, folding his legs, and opened the book avidly, leaning it toward the dim light from the torch.
Karyl buried his face in his hands, and Thorn heard a muttered, “I did it again!”
“Did you know,” Ruben spouted suddenly, “that there have been tales of Forged going back hundreds and hundreds of years? They have quite the history and are apparently native only to Ainsea.” Suddenly seeming to become aware that no one else was speaking and that they were all staring at him, he looked up, and his brow furrowed in a friendly, puzzled manner.
“I’m fascinated by it, frankly,” he said. “Seeing as we have a bit of time — until pre-dawn, to be exact — I would like to ask our friend Thorny here a few questions about his abilities.”
They all turned to look at him and he shifted uncomfortably.
“I thought you were meant to be finding out about the Anvil,” he protested.
“Ah, yes,” said the bard. “This — this will help, if I get a little more information about you. It will give me a far greater idea of what you’re capable of.”
Thorn looked at Irae with an expression of mute appeal. He didn’t mind the bard, but the last thing he wanted was to be interrogated when they should be resting, especially about what he could do. Especially about what he couldn’t do.
Jelen, though, nodded at him. “Go on, then,” she said. “As long as you’re quiet about it, and don’t attract any undue attention.”
Thorn’s shoulders sagged, and Ruben patted at the ground near him expectantly. While the rest of the group bustled about, lighting a small fire and unpacking a little food, Thorn kneeled stiffly beside the bard.
“It isn’t exactly every day that a legendarian gets to meet the actual legend,” said Ruben. “I’d be a ludicrous excuse for my profession if I didn’t jump at the chance to find out more about you and the Forged in general.”
“I wouldn’t take me as an example for the rest,” said Thorn.
“Such humility.” Ruben shook his head in delight.
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” said Thorn, “I’m far too humble to let you ask me about what I can do, or at least to tell you about it.”
“You must strive to overcome it. With your help, I will be able to write an entirely new portion of this compendium.” The bard pulled a lead pencil from behind his ear and tapped at Thorn’s hand with it. “Now. Thorny.”
“Thorny?” It had nearly escaped his notice the first time, but
now it stood out like a firefly in the dark.
“Yes. May I call you that?”
“I — suppose so,” said Thorn, wondering why on earth he wanted to.
“Oh, good,” said the bard happily, “and you must call me Ben, now that we’re getting to be friends.” The light of the torch gleamed from his teeth.
Thorn began to wonder if the bard was really quite right in the head. But apart from the slightly manic cheerfulness, Ruben did seem focused on his profession, and his new goal of gaining information on the Forged. He leaned forward, fixed Thorn with his limpid blue gaze, and tapped expectantly at the thick compendium that was perched on his knee.
“How did you know you were Forged?”
The unexpected question felt like a punch to the gut. A flash of memories overwhelmed him, flicking by each more quickly. He was unable to hold them, stop them, or ward them off. The woods — the dark — his mother — huddled in the corner, on the dirt floor of a small house in the village, seeing something damp come away on his fingertips —
Thorn blinked rapidly several times, and shook his head, which suddenly felt light and nearly empty after the rush of memories.
“I don’t remember,” he said, hollowly.
“No?” said the bard. “Well, that is disappointing.”
“I don’t remember ever not knowing,” said Thorn. “I think — I knew I was different, before I knew that there was something to be different from. I didn’t know how, only what my parents told me. And the old woman in the village, she had thoughts to share on the subject as well. Until I was a few years old. Four, five maybe.”
“And then what did she tell you?” said the bard.
“Then,” said Thorn, “I didn’t hear much of anything from anyone.” He made as if to get up. Ruben reached out quickly and tugged him back down again.
“I won’t ask about your past,” he promised, “if it makes you so sad. The last thing I want to do is make people sad. Instead, may I ask you about your abilities?”
“No, you may not,” said Thorn.
“But Jelen said you should talk about it,” said the bard, glancing toward her. “If it will help in her quest.”
Thorn glanced over too, scarcely able to help himself. She was looking in their direction, and when she caught gazes with him, she gave a slight nod of approval. He was going to have to lie through his teeth.
“Plants,” he said abruptly.
“Plants?”
“I can change living things into plants. Forge them. Still living, just no longer breathing.”
“Ah.” The bard opened the compendium and scribbled a note in the margin.
Thorn looked over his shoulder. Line drawings accompanied the illuminated text of the book — people with deformities, similar to his own. A boy without a jaw, a young woman without a nose. A small rendering in lead pencil of himself, a surprisingly good likeness, turned to the side to show his own deformity, the ugly pit where his ear should have been on a normal, healthy, uncursed person. He swallowed hard and looked away.
The bard looked back up at him avidly. “What about other things?” he said. “Can you change living creatures into other types of creatures? Fauna rather than flora?”
“No,” said Thorn. “It’s always been plants and trees.”
“Ah,” said the bard again, but looked a little disappointed. Despite himself, Thorn found his gaze being drawn once again to the compendium. He jerked his chin at it.
“It says a lot about the Forged in there, does it?”
“As much as is currently known.” Ruben smoothed a hand over the page. “Which is not a great deal. Though they have been around for centuries, they appear somewhat abruptly in the legendarian records. No one knows quite where they came from, or how.” He smiled fondly at the page, then glanced up at Thorn. “How much do you know about your own kind?”
Thorn shrugged with one shoulder.
“That we are cursed; outcasts by law,” he said. “Not much more than that.”
“And there is debate on that subject, as well,” said Ruben enthusiastically. “For one thing, all it took was one angry king to make the law, and no one to care enough to change it afterward. There’s a bit of history involved, of course, but as far as intrinsically being cursed, well, it’s a well-substantiated fact that people fear what they do not understand. And powers such as yours— it boggles the mind, really, which is the same as being un-understandable. So the tales of being cursed may very well come from social prejudice, rather than anything to do with reality.”
“Social prejudice,” repeated Thorn. The term was unknown to him, but the idea jumped out at him and grabbed hold. He felt a faint twinge of hope. “Such as — well, the giant monks, for instance, the ones you told me about. So they may not be as terrifying and giant as the books say?”
“Oh, no,” said Ruben, slapping the compendium shut. “They’re terrifying, all right. If anything, they’re worse.”
“Of course they are.” The faint twinge of hope turned into a disproportionately large surge of disappointment.
“Anyway, you know the Forged were quite in favor for a very long time, and it was only within the last hundred years or so that the stories about them being cursed at birth came into being. So that could very well be a myth.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Thorn. He felt quite cursed enough to believe it. “Jelen tells me that things can change, that people will stop thinking that Forged are cursed, evil, and born to be outcasts. I don’t believe her, though.”
“Well, you never can say never,” said the legendarian. “The Forged were outlawed because of one king — who’s to say that they won’t be in-lawed, so to speak, by another? There have always been powerful men who are drawn to power, and if there happens to be someone who combines power with the innocence and naivety of having spent their life as a social outcast —” He broke off, ending his sentence with an eloquent shrug. “But what do I know,” he said. “I’m a bard, not a politician. I wouldn’t be able to climb to power on the backs of others if my life depended on it. What is interesting, though, and what I would like very much to have the chance to find out, is whether or not the stories are true of Forged who have more than one variation of power. You say that plants are your talent — that’s understandable, for certainly the majority of tales of the Forged are centered around a single ability. But there are others, less substantiated, that speak of those who were able to change their powers as the whim took them. They could turn animals into plants, plants into animals, people into plants and animals and back again. There was even one, an unnamed, untracked Forged girl somewhere in the mountains, centuries ago, who was claimed to be able to turn animals into people. But that is impossible to determine the truth of, of course. Certainly, if there were such a thing, everyone would have heard of it by now.”
But Thorn wasn’t really paying attention to any of this speculation. Hope had flared up once again. Was it possible that the change in his power was not caused by them being broken, exactly, but by them adapting? He had scarcely used them in years, after all. Perhaps it was a combination of being out of practice and getting older. He didn’t realize that the hope was showing until the bard leaned forward and peered into his face.
“Thorny!” he said. “You’re smiling!”
“You don’t sound too happy about it,” said Thorn.
“I’m not used to it,” said the bard. “It’s like seeing a goose grin. It gives me the shivers, quite frankly.”
Thorn was about to thank him insincerely for his kind words when Lully shot to her feet.
“I hear a sound,” she said.
As swiftly as a stone dropped into water, they all dropped into silence. Thorn could hardly credit it — how could Lully have heard something, when he had heard nothing? But perhaps hope was more distracting than he’d thought.
Lully chewed on her bottom lip. “Maybe it’s nothing,” she began.
Irae waved a hand at her. “Nothing is nothing,” she s
aid. “Listen.”
They all did as she bid and concentrated on the night. But the countryside was still around them, and the only sound was the music of the stars.
Someone whispered, “What are we listening for?”
“Shh,” hissed Irae.
Thorn listened intently, his body pulled taut as a bowstring, feeling as though the top of his head had been unfolded to the night. Still crouched on the ground, he clutched at his knees with both hands. It was so silent, he could hear the breathing of those around them, could count their breaths. So still and quiet, he could hear their heart beats —
One — two, three — four — five, six, seven —
He drew in a deep breath but cut off his shout before it could escape. He whirled, grabbed the torch from an astounded Irae and pushed it toward the stranger’s heart.
It was inside a stranger’s body, of course. The light of the torch revealed the details, enough so that the rest of the group reacted, and reacted strongly. Karyl leapt up, swearing. Irae stood up so quickly that she actually fell back. Lully had her hand on her bow and arrow inside of five seconds. The bard yelped. Graic threw what turned out to be a potato.
The stranger caught the potato calmly and examined it. He wore a black mask, and a black broad-brimmed hat. The light of the little fire gleamed off his eyes. Through the hubbub and fuss, he scarcely moved, only watching them with interest. It was only when Karyl had his sword out, point directed at the stranger’s throat, that he spoke. His voice was quiet and mild, but it was the sort of voice that was used to being listened to.
“There’s not a lot of point to all this,” he said. “You’re completely surrounded, and as soon as you try to kill me, five arrows will fill your back like a pincushion. So you might as well just set it down and take your seat like civilized prisoners.”
Karyl looked swiftly to Irae, who had pulled her sword and brandished it.
“Why should we believe anything you say?” she said.
The stranger’s calm, mild voice was at odds with his mask, which kept them from seeing any change in expression beyond the polite raise of his eyebrows.
