Raven's Bane

by Will Bly

  Farah’s hand reached toward his shoulder, hesitated, and came to rest on him.

  His gaze rolled to her.

  Her pulse quickened with fright, but she held strong.

  His eyes, and face, relented. His stance deflated, and he exhaled. He walked to their gear, grabbed up his share, and continued down the path.

  Drops of rain tumbled from the sky.

  Chapter 4: Oaken Barrels

  Thousands of slightly prickly but pliable hairs grated gently against Ithial’s skin as the cart jostled its way along the road. The experience proved abrasive, and yet Ithial appreciated being able to rest among deer furs along the way. Numerous bags of trinkets and unknown items lined the walls of the cart. The clutter left little room for him to maneuver. His back ached with the worst pain yet—the sort of pain that accompanies the start of any healing process. He always felt worse before he got better. Just like every other time. He imagined his back would harden up into a giant scab like a turtle shell.

  Unable to turn over, surrounded by bags of trinkets and other wares, Ithial felt very much like a turtle in a box just waiting to be bought, sold, and eaten. He imagined a wide open country around them, rolling hills with green grass and a clear blue sky. But only deer furs and worn wooden planks graced his view.

  “How are you feeling?” came a vaguely familiar voice.

  That’s right—the old merchant.

  “I am Merlane—the merchant,” he said.

  Ithial felt like his thoughts had been read. He closed his eyes and remained quiet for a moment or two. He hoped the old man would give up on talking.

  “I am Merlane,” he repeated, “And you are? You know it’s rude to ignore someone.”

  Rude? What does it even mean to be rude? To offend people? Ithial’s offended people all his life. He’s lived and breathed rude. I am rude incarnate, you old bastard.

  “I understand something terrible happened to you. You are safe now.”

  Ithial’s chest tightened. Did he want some kind of reward? I saved myself, you dolt. The old man just happened to come along at the right time.

  “You don’t have to be bitter to people, you know. You are far too young to be bitter. What are you, eleven... twelve?”

  Is he in my mind? “Thirteen.”

  “Oh, are you now? A little undersized, eh? Well, we are all crafted differently.”

  “I might be small, but I have my strengths. I have magic.” Even as he spoke, truth came to the front of his mind. “Though I can’t seem to find it.”

  “You used a great deal of your magic to free yourself, I take it? Not an uncommon story for magic wielders. But the cost is greater than you might realize.”

  “Yes. I used it for freedom. From my brother… and father...” He huffed onto the floor in front of him. The deer skins filled his nostrils with musk. “It smells back here.”

  “Maybe you shook something loose. How long have you been out there on your own? When’s the last time you—”

  “Wh—what? No, it’s not me. I meant—”

  “Are you sure it isn’t you? Smelt a little ripe when I picked you up before.”

  “The deerskins…”

  “Tch, tch, excuses, excuses. We’ll get you a good washing in town.”

  Ithial opened his eyes, pushed himself up, and scrambled to his knees. “Which town?” Urgency colored his voice more than he had wanted it to.

  “Whoa… Whoa… careful there. I put some salves on your back—careful. Don’t rub on anything.”

  “Where are we going?” Ithial leaned forward.

  “Griswold. You should know that. This road only heads one direction.”

  “I haven’t been out of the village.” Ithial sat back and folded his arms.

  “Oh. That’s a shame. A boy doesn’t learn his place in the world if he doesn’t get to know the world.”

  “Well, that’ll change now, right? I won’t go back.” Ithial’s heartbeat sped up.

  Merlane didn’t answer. The cobbling of the wooden wheels against the road filled their ears. The merchant frowned and hummed.

  “Don’t make me go back,” Ithial pleaded. His fate rested in the old man’s hands.

  “Hmph. I won’t make you go back. You are old enough to make your own choices.”

  “Good…” The cart stumbled along. Ithial laid back down and put his arms under his head to protect against the bouncing of the cart. He stayed there in silence for some time considering his next move. Ithial had no home, truly nothing. A chill shook him. He had no idea how he was going to survive this. For years, the fear of the unknown had kept him bound to the abuses of his village. That fear whipped into a frenzy now that this harsh truth confronted him.

  The one thing that provided him with a measure of comfort, oddly enough, was the murder of his brother. He had somehow expected to be repulsed by his actions, to look back in hindsight with disgust and regret. It didn’t happen. He felt a bit scared of what he did, to be sure, but a rush of power also lit up in his veins. His brother had been vanquished. True justice served.

  “So your father and brother were responsible for what happened to your back?”

  Ithial nodded. The old man wasn’t looking back at him, but somehow detected the answer.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Cruel. Humans can be incredibly cruel… Even to their own kin… Perhaps especially to their own.”

  “What would you know about it?” He felt a snarl pulling at his face.

  “Oh! The temper on you! My back might not be torn asunder, but I’ve been around long enough—traveled far enough—loved and hated long enough—to reap my fair share of human pettiness and sadism. You shouldn’t assume that I have not endured my own struggles. That’s simply not fair.”

  Ithial opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words. He felt weird inside, a mixture of shame and anger. He pressed his eyes closed and tried to squint the feeling away. Finding no way to redeem himself, he opted to change the subject. “So where are you traveling to?”

  “Well, I’m heading west. We’ll come to Point Lookout in a few days. It is a grand place—located on a tall, forested bluff overlooking the Great Desert like a great, big natural fortress. Maybe there we can find some kind of accommodations for you. It is a place of great commerce where people get outfitted for adventures. Or you could continue with me on the path I’m following.”

  “What path? Where?”

  “Well, from Point Lookout I’ll cross the Great Desert—”

  “What! Why?” Ithial’s voice cracked.

  The old man laughed. “Yes, well, I’ve done it before. A few times actually. You see, I’m looking for something. A tomb or cave somewhere out in the middle of that great, sandy expanse. Inside that tomb, there are drawings on the wall. Lore has it that the drawings reveal the key to harvesting magic.”

  “Harvesting magic?” Ithial tilted his head.

  Merlane’s hands waved like magic wands as he spoke. “Yes, you see—I’m like you. A magic-wielder. I’ve grown a bit older, and I feel my magic is on the decline. I haven’t even used it in… oh, say, five years now. I’ve made it my life’s work to defeat nature—to break down the wall between humans and everlasting magic.”

  Ithial looked at the palms of his hand and flexed his fingers. “I don’t quite understand.”

  “That feeling you have—that you lost something. It’s because we magic wielders are like oaken barrels of differing sizes, and our magic is limited to the confines. At first, we swish and swash with the fullness of it all, but as we use up our magic, we have to look deeper and deeper into the darkness to find it. Eventually, one is left wandering the recesses of the mind in the hopes of discovering a leftover crumb of the good stuff. I found such a crumb not too long ago. I memorized where it is in my mind. I visit it each day, right about when I go to sleep at night, but I dare not use it. Nor linger near it long.”

  “Right now I can’t find mine,” Ithial lamented.

  “It’s because
of what you did. Must have used a lot of the stuff.”

  “I guess I did,” Ithial said and sighed.

  Merlane stretched his neck back and forth. “There are, of course, certain gifted magic-wielders with larger oaken barrels, gigantic even. But we are all subservient to the law of limits. I’d like to change that. I think finding you is fortunate. You can be a great help. That is… if you want what I want.”

  “I think I do.” Ithial straightened up and grabbed the cart wall.

  “Yes. You may not know quite where you want to go or who you want to be. But I imagine you’d like magic to be a part of it all.”

  “Magic, I’m not sure of. I just want to be far from here. Far from my father.”

  Merlane remained silent for the space of ten breaths. He then arched his chin up. “Some people are blind to the gifts they have around them. Your father is such a person. Sometimes they just need to see what a special person you are. Become a better man than he is, and then show him so. Make yourself undeniable. One day, when you are well removed from the petty workings of your village, return to your father and show him what a great man looks like.”

  Ithial contemplated Merlane’s words for a moment. Yes, his father was blind to his gifts. Ithial decided there he would become the better man, the stronger man. And one day, he’d return to his father and show him what a great man looked like. He’ll feel the hopelessness that I’ve felt. He’ll be sorry he wasn’t a better father to me.

  “Anyway, I make a habit of crossing the desert, venturing into its borderlands to trade and raise capital, and cross the desert again.”

  “Don’t they say few survive the Great Desert?”

  “Well, this few,” he said. waving a hand at himself and his mule, “has made the crossing quite a bit now. And we haven’t died yet! It is certainly a perilous trip though, and each trip we make certainly turns the odds evermore against our favor.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  Merlane cocked an eye at him. “This is a serious decision, lad, you can’t just go and—”

  “I can. You said I’m an adult, and I can. So I am.”

  In truth, Ithial didn’t think that Point Lookout was far enough away from the mess he’d left behind. The last thing he wanted was for his actions to catch up to him. Putting a vast, dry, cracked desert between him and his problems seemed the best option. The feather of freedom had fallen ever so softly on his lap. They couldn’t get started soon enough. He felt the consequence of the bad things he had done licking at his back like flames of the forest fire he had set.

  Chapter 5: Lightning Strike

  The group found a dry patch for the night. They worked as they had walked: in silence. Farah gathered fodder for the flames, while Irulen started the fire itself. She dropped the branches on the ground with a thump and sat down.

  The fire now burned merry and warm. It illuminated Merek and Irulen’s faces.

  A grin of comfort adorned Merek’s face. His eyes were closed, and waves of warm light lapped against his face. Always happy with the little things. She envied that. Farah’s gaze shifted to Irulen. He must envy that as well. Irulen stared into the fire, but there was no comfort in his eyes. He stared, blinked, and stared some more. The fire burned as a reflection of his inner turmoil.

  Farah was worried for him, and she was also worried for her own well-being. She had been exposed to many gruesome things since joining Irulen in his travels. Her memories were riddled with undead wights, fiendish imps, and even that poor child. Perhaps those experiences strengthened her, to the point where she could deal with what Irulen had done in the past. Yet killing Gronkle the way he did bothered her the most. Irulen always acted out of necessity, but now he crossed that line and became reckless. He made a conscious choice to torture and kill somebody. And he used magic to do so.

  Shadows licked against the fire’s light on Irulen’s face. His face was slack, his shoulders slumped, his eyes vacant. He was weakening somehow. Like there was a battle inside. Her brow wrinkled as she regarded him and thought back to a moment past.

  It was the first day she’d met him, a magical, comely man. He was equal parts mysterious and ostentatious. His crude humor and assertive nature covered the dark nature of his secrets. Her thoughts traveled to the night she’d first met him in Frostbridge. He couldn’t have made a worse first impression. He sat in the tavern all smug and mighty.

  “Here, give me your arm,” he’d said. She obliged, and he ran his hand along her arm. Her skin cooled and heated as his fingertips traced her skin. Tried to impress her with magic, he did. Maybe he thought she’d blush, swoon, and tumble down into his arms. She slapped him square across the face.

  She laid her hand over the arm he had touched that night, thinking back. She smiled at the silliness and the warmth.

  He couldn’t have been less heroic, but Frostbridge needed him. Three young girls killed, girls that were Farah’s friends, and she had feared she’d be next.

  Although skeptical, desperation had pushed her to sneak into his room in search of help.

  He drank for a long while before returning to his room. But when he did, she shared everything she knew about the murders and her fear that she was in danger. She put her fate into the hands of a stranger that night. He softened before her eyes, offering reassurances and a listening ear. The idea was even floated, apparently without ulterior motive, that she could stay the night in his room. Irulen offered to take the floor. “I’m used to sleeping on stones in the wild. I can sleep on the floor,” he said at the time.

  Farah remembered how she felt then. In private, his humor failed to belie his true self. The look in his eyes when he first asked her to stay. There in the pool of his iris floated embarrassment, trust, and insecurity. She saw his innocence and, in that instant, saw a hint of the true Irulen lurking below the surface.

  She snapped out of her daydream, and the smile left her face. Irulen looked more beaten up and vulnerable now. His skin sat a little more loosely around his eyes. Not enough time had passed since they met for him to look like that. Something was wrong, something’s been wrong. Beyond guilt alone.

  She shivered. The movement drew Irulen’s attention. She tried to relax her posture, but it was too late.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She pointed across the fire at Merek. The teen was busily chewing his fingernails. “Merek’s nervous.”

  “Oh, him? He’s like a dowsing rod of emotions, picks up what people near him feel.”

  Farah looked to the fire. “Are you nervous, then?”

  Irulen straightened and slapped his hands on the tops of his thighs. “Anxious, yes, a little anxious.”

  “Why is that?” Farah asked, a knot tightening in her stomach.

  “Is Quinn’s fate not enough?” His voice raised.

  “No, well, of course it is, but there is something more, isn’t there?”

  Irulen’s gaze turned to the flames. He shook his head.

  “Is it about Kay?”

  “No!” His eyes flashed to Farah.

  She met his stare head on. “I don’t deserve your ire.”

  The fire crackled. Irulen sighed. “I know,” he finally said. “Yes, I’m worried about Quinn and Kay. But also me. I’m weakening. I can feel it.”

  She shifted to him and took his hands into hers. He’d once held her hands the same way, healing her from frostbite. “Weakening how?”

  “My magic, my power, I fear I’m being bled dry.”

  “You need to stop letting Ithial bleed you, then.”

  Irulen raised his eyebrow but remained silent.

  Farah continued, “The happening at the tavern, having Gronkle harass us on the path... He wants you weak. He knows your wrath, and he’s playing to it.”

  Irulen looked back at the flames. “You’re right, of course. I need to save everything I can, until a time that matters.”

  “And you will need help. We need to get Kay and Quinn back, somehow.” She pressed her lip
s together and nodded to reinforce the serious nature of her assertion.

  Irulen groaned. “If it were only that easy.”

  “It can be, with Kay at least...”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She loves you.” Farah rubbed the back of her neck. She didn’t expect to say what she said. The truth sure could be embarrassing.

  Irulen scoffed and laughed. “She certainly does not. Kay is just a woman who takes what she wants when she wants it.”

  “Don’t objectify yourself like that.”

  “Like what? I can’t help being a sexy slice of mage-meat.”

  Farah rolled her eyes. “A hopeless piece of mage-meat.”

  “If I’m so hopeless, then why do you go on following me around?”

  “Follow? I’m not following. Not you at least. If I’m following anything, it’s my fate, my destiny.”

  “You believe in that stuff, do you?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I might. Except, what if free will and fate had a relationship?”

  “What kind?”

  “You know, romantic.” He smiled. “Intimate.”

  Farah tried to look appalled, failed, and giggled. “You are saying that free will and fate have sex?”

  “Yeah, and they are monogamous. There’s fate, everything that’s lined up for us to deal with. And free will, the way in which we tread fate’s path. They are always flowing in and out of each other.”

  “Well, it’s my fate to see this thing through, and my free will to deal with your shit.”

  Irulen winced. “Youch, am I that hard to get along with?”

  “I’ve idolized and admired you, questioned and ridiculed you, despised and cursed you. I’ve watched you ruin your relationship with your best friend and break the heart of a tough-as-nails bounty hunter. Yeah, you are a blast to be around.”

  Irulen smiled, but it seemed forced.