Authors: Usman Ijaz
When he returned accompanied by a sleepy and
tired Nemoy, Alexis had fallen asleep, he saw.
The doctor began to check his patient over,
lifting the bandages and the poultice to look at the wound beneath, feeling his
forehead and his ears as well.
“He seems to be making a good recovery,” marveled
Nemoy.
“How long before he returns to good health?”
Connor asked.
“It depends on his body and how quickly it wants
to heal itself,” Nemoy said and yawned. “I’m going to go back to sleep, he
seems well enough.”
Connor remained for a few moments, unable to
stop smiling.
He headed above deck and made his way to the
ship’s stern, where he sat with his back to the railing and ate breakfast. He
lay his head back and closed his eyes, the early morning breeze cool on his
skin.
On the ‘Spirit, most of the crew was already up
and about, shouting orders to one another as they checked the sails, keeping
the ship sailing on course. The smokestacks were dead he noticed.
“What are you smiling about?” Adrian asked as he
came over and took a seat beside him.
Connor opened his eyes. “Simply thinking about
home.”
“Have you seen Alexis this morning?”
“Yes. It looks as though he’ll be all right.”
“Yes,” Adrian agreed. “It really is quite
marvelous.”
They sat and talked for the next little while.
Adrian left to get breakfast. Connor watched him go, and felt a deep shame at
how he could have hated his cousin so. They didn’t speak of it, simply treated
it as something that had never happened, and Connor was thankful for that. He
watched the crew for a bit, and then decided to lend a hand.
3
It wasn’t the greatest food he had ever eaten,
not even close, but Alexis found it tasted wonderful nonetheless. His appetite
had returned in full force upon waking, and he now sat devouring an entire
platter of food, consisting mostly of salted beef, dried bread, and cheese. He
was aware of the faces watching with something close to alarm, those of the
boys and the captain.
“How do you feel, Alexis?” Adrian asked,
mystified.
“A little tired, but certainly better than
before.”
The captain stepped forward then. “Do you mind
showing me the mark on your hand, lad?”
Alexis’s gaze lingered on the man.
He knows
,
he thought as he glanced at the boys.
“We had to tell him, Alexis,” Adrian said
apologetically.
Lavos looked from the boys to Alexis. “Don’t
blame the boys, lad, it really was my forcing that made them tell me.”
“How many know of this, captain?” Alexis asked,
his tone serious and the food forgotten.
“None, I think, none besides me that is,” Lavos
said. “Joni found the guns but I don’t think he’s actually ever been up close
to a Legionnaire to tell whom they belonged to.”
Alexis sighed. “That’s good, then.” He watched
the captain for long moments. “I take it you realize the importance of it
remaining that way?”
The captain shook his head. “Lad, I wouldn’t
betray you. I’m from Grandal myself, and I know what the Legion stands for.”
Alexis studied the captain’s face closely. Then he
removed his left glove, and showed Lavos the crimson sun flare with the eagle
in flight in the center. For a long time the captain simply stared at the
tattoo. Then he blinked and nodded.
“It does my heart good to see the mark,” he
whispered.
Alexis drew on his glove. “I trust you have my
guns in a safe place?”
“Of course.”
“Then there is no need to worry,” Alexis said,
and resumed eating, at a slower pace. “When do you expect to reach port,
captain?”
“Tomorrow's eve should bring us to Sune, good
enough,” said the captain. His eyes drifted to the covered mark.
“Will you leave us alone for a few moments?”
Alexis asked. “We must talk.”
“Aye, of course,” Lavos said, and turned to
leave. He halted and turned around. “Would you fellows like to join me for
dinner tonight?”
“We would be happy to join you, captain,” Alexis
told the man.
Lavos’s face lit up, and he blabbered his
gratitude as he closed the door once again.
Adrian moved up besides Alexis. “We had to tell
him, Alexis, there was no other way.”
“It’s all right, Adrian. I don’t think much harm
will come out of the captain knowing; he seems like a man loyal to his
country.”
“What happens when we get off in Sune?” Connor
asked.
Alexis mused over it. “Sune isn’t too far off
our path. It will take us longer to reach Gale, but it can be done. Now, no one
onboard knows what we’re about, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Adrian said. “At least we don’t know that
anyone knows.”
Alexis thought it over, frowning in thought.
“We’ll have to hope that no one knows,” he muttered.
“Alexis?” Connor said when they had all fallen
silent. “What were those creatures in the woods?”
Alexis looked up from his food and looked at the
two boys. “I don’t know, Connor, perhaps just a feral tribe. But whatever they
are, they are behind us now and we must look to what is ahead.”
4
They all attended the dinner with the captain,
even though Alexis had to be helped to the room.
The dinner comprised mostly of large quantities
of salted cod, fish chowder and sea biscuits and dried fruit. The conversation
was mainly between the captain and the Legionnaire while the two boys listened
and watched on.
”I find it rather odd that you happened to be
coming around just as we needed you,” Alexis said after a lull in the
conversation of Grandal.
“Aye, so do I. I didn’t plan on sailing in the
middle of the night, or to choose the left fork of the Konul River - it’s much
too long and dangerous, you see - but when the queer notion took me, it
wouldn’t leave my mind,” Lavos explained. He laughed abruptly. “In fact, I
remember thinking that I wasn’t in control of my own thoughts, and I suppose
the crew must have thought the same when I told them to set sail under a waxing
moon. That’s terrible luck to sailors, you see.”
His three guests listened with quiet attention.
They left the captain’s room soon after that,
with the boys aiding the Legionnaire between them. As Alexis lay down on his
cot, he turned to Adrian. “Do you know what he was talking about in there?”
Adrian nodded. “The Source ... it guided him to
us.”
“Yes,” agreed Alexis. “Now we know of another
fact.”
“What’s that?”
“It knows of you as well ... and wants you to
reach it.”
1
The two assassins rode out of the small town
early the next morning and made their way down the road. They had crossed over
into Arcadia two days earlier, and it was here that Amon said they would likely
find the Legionnaire and the Ascillian child.
Iris watched the prairies on both sides of the
road with calm emerald eyes. She studied the lazy sway of the tall Horn
flowers, their bright red tops stirring in the wind, and smiled. The warm breeze
that blew back her dark hair from her face and stirred dust around the horses
hooves also carried the flowers’ scent, and she found it a wonderful smell.
The road they traveled was long and dull, but
she didn’t mind at all. Amon was a different matter, however - she could tell
just by looking at his tensed back. Amon seemed to detest anything that still
showed life, it sometimes seemed to her.
They rode for most of the morning, stopped
around mid-afternoon with the sun high in the sky to eat at an inn, and then
were on the move again. Iris rode a little behind Amon, allowing the rest of
the road to be used by travelers going the opposite direction. The sky overhead
was a brilliant blue that she found herself gazing at for long moments. Amon’s
harsh voice snapped her out of her reverie.
“Keep up! We don’t have time for daydreaming.”
Iris sped her horse up and rode beside him. She
felt better simply by being closer to him. He had always been with her, for
almost as long as she could remember. Most of her earliest memories were of
Amon and her. What came before was hazy; sometimes she imagined she saw a
woman’s face that stuck in her mind for no reason, at other times a man’s, but
then she would become certain they were both people she had killed in the assassin’s
trade. The memories that were clear to her were of Amon teaching her the skills
of death, some as simple games that included stealing a fishmonger’s ware
without ever him seeing anything, others as hard as trying to imagine that the
people she intended to kill were simply wooden puppets.
She watched Amon from the corner of her eyes,
and though she could remember standing before him while he drove her to tears
with his words for failing him, she still could not help but feel a strong love
for him. He was the only one in this world who cared for her, and he was her closest
friend.
“Amon...?” she said, trying to gauge his mood.
“What?” he growled, but in his voice she did not
hear impatience or anger, only a calm resignation.
She took her chance then, hoping that she had
read his mood correctly. “Amon ... who taught you
the assassin’s craft?”
He had taught her not to question him in anything, and she had not asked him
this in years, but she asked him now on the long road. He had not bothered to
answer her in the past, and she thought he would keep his quiet this time as
well. He certainly looked annoyed by the question.
They rode on for another quarter of a mile
before Amon said anything. His voice low as though answering her made him
confront something he did not dare speak of too loud. At the sight of the weariness
on his face, she was about to tell him he need not tell her, but he spoke in a
blunt tone, and she listened.
“I was taught by the streets of Mahdenpoor.” And
that was all he said for a while. Then: “There is no harder teacher than the
world around you, and no stricter rules than the ones you apply to yourself.”
It seemed to Iris that he had forgotten about her, the way he watched only the
road before him and spoke to himself. “What I learned, I learned while fighting
to survive. The streets make for a poor bed, as I quickly found out. I slept in
whichever hole I found, and hoped it didn’t belong to another, larger rat. When
I was hungry, I took what I needed from vendors’ booths and the harbor, not
caring that I had no right there, not by the Imperial King’s writ, anyway.”
Disgust made his voice thick. “There were others
like me, of course, but I was different than them or they were different from
me, which is to say we were not at all alike. Everywhere I go I find a
hierarchy, and I suppose I should not be surprised that street urchins work in
the same manner. I refused to be a part of the rest of the babble, and paid for
it whenever they caught me. In time the lot of them were to die at my hands,
but not then. I lived on the streets, and discovered the world for what it is.”
Amon stopped and watched the prairies on the
side of the road. Iris watched him closely and not without a little awe. That
fact that he was telling her this still amazed her; Amon was not at all a man
to discuss his past. She wanted desperately to hear the rest of what he had to
say, but she dared not press him if it hurt him too much. For a long time they
traveled in silence then. The sun drifted a little closer to its resting place
and pale wisps of clouds drifted across the sky.
As they crested a hill and saw the road
stretching before them with no town or village in sight Amon continued in a
plain voice. “My first kill was when I was twelve. It was for no other reason
than that the boy had pummeled me more times than I could count. I watched him
die, filled with a frustration and anger that made me wish there were others at
hand, others whose blood I could spill. When I calmed I dumped the body in the
harbor - to hell with the Imperial King!” He beat his right fist against his
breast in mockery, a faint smile twisting his lips. “I left Mahdenpoor and
traveled across Anoura. Everywhere I went I found vermin for killing. Sometimes
I killed for no more than a passing glance. I stalked my prey, not like a rat
but as a hunter. I became exceedingly good at it.” His eyes stared out at the
pastures with a distant gaze. “I once killed five men of the old Legion, simply
to see if I would die that night or them. One by one I stole upon them like
mist, and left them dead in the guardhouse. The King sent a warrant out for the
murderers, but they never knew where to look.
“By the time I turned nineteen I had been across
most of Anoura and Xian, and had killed more men and women than I cared to
count. I was making money by then, and beginning to realize where my skills
could take me. Most of the fools that hired me did so for political reasons
that I never cared about. What struck me as odd was the irony - they hired me
to kill a rival, and the next week it could be their heads I’d come looking
for. I also learned the dangers to myself in that time. Too many ambushes
nearly avoided made me wary. I lay low for a time, and headed back to
Mahdenpoor. I had never missed the cursed place, but I wanted to come back to
it as something more than I had left it.