Northlight (12 page)

A girl in a rumpled smock came on duty as the barkeep's helper and went from table to table, refilling mugs. Terricel thought she looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place her. As the girl turned back to the bar, Gaylinn caught her arm and spoke a few soft words. The girl froze, head lowered. Her pupils dilated unnaturally in the glare of the fish tank.

“It's none of your business what I do!” she told Gaylinn “Who appointed
you
my Guardian?”

Terricel caught a whiff of the girl's breath and recognized the pungent reek of ghostweed. Trembling, she jerked out of Gaylinn's grasp, whirled, and bolted for the inner doors.

“Wait here,” Gaylinn said over her shoulder as she started after the girl.

“I'm coming with you.” Terricel scrambled to his feet, almost overturning his chair.

She turned, hands on her hips. “I
said
I'll handle it.”

Terricel caught her arm.

“Damn it, Terr! Stay out of this!”

Terricel remembered how stubborn she could be, how set on having her own way. He clenched his teeth and didn't let go.

“You don't understand! I've got to get her out of here and she won't listen to me if you're there,” Gaylinn said. “And yes, it's because you're Esme's son.”

“Corrode it, Linni, I never expected
you
— ”

“I don't have time to stand here and argue with you about it.” She pulled away with such a look on her face that Terricel opened his fingers and let her go.

“I'm sorry tonight turned out this way,” she added in a softer tone. “It isn't your fault, it's just that Silla needs me and you don't. I can't turn my back on her, not even for you. I'm not sure what you need, but it isn't me.”

Chest heaving, Terricel watched Gaylinn disappear into the shadowy recesses of the saloon. He'd seen the girl somewhere before — then he remembered the portrait series in Gaylinn's studio. Her name was Silana or Silvena or something like that. She'd been developing a new communications systems that nobody thought she'd ever sneak past the gaea-priests, but then she'd lost her grant through some administrative foul-up and by the time it was straightened out, she'd left. Back to Raimuth, he'd assumed.

Gaylinn had been furious at him when he said it was just bad luck. “Look at what happened to Markill's uncle and his inventions,” she'd said. “His sister's farm burned down and he ended up tending pigs. A master's in Applied Science, and he's
tending pigs!
”

“What are you hinting at?” Terricel had said. “There's some sort of conspiracy behind all this?”

“You of all people should realize that!”

“‘Me of all people'? What the crot does that mean?” he'd yelled, and that had been the start of one of their more explosive arguments. He wished — he didn't know what he wished — just that things didn't have to be the way they were.

He took a step backward, toward the bar, and bumped into a heavy-set man in stained rambler's coveralls.

“Watch where you're going, mamma's-boy.” The stranger shoved Terricel in the chest with his knuckles, hard enough to sting. The ale-flush over the man's features mirrored the heat that instantly rose to Terricel's.

Something caustic and quicksilver surged through Terricel's veins instead of blood. “Watch who you're pushing!”

“I'll push anyone I crotting well like, any time I crotting well like, and there's nothing you or your bat-sucking mamma can do to stop me.”

Without any idea of what he was doing, Terricel swung a punch at the man. His fist collided with the man's out-thrust jaw. A jarring shock shot up Terricel's arm and along his spine. The air turned bright in his lungs. His entire body recoiled from the impact. His knuckles went numb and then stung ferociously. He stared at his hand, momentarily astonished that he'd actually hit someone with it.

Suddenly a fist the size of his foot rushed straight at Terricel's nose, with the power of a heavy-muscled arm and shoulder behind it. Terricel caught a glimpse of bared teeth and widened, bloodshot eyes before his reflexes took over and he ducked.

The stranger's fist clipped Terricel just above one ear. He scrambled for balance, arms flailing. His feet caught on something and he tripped. His hip slammed into the edge of a table.. Rough hands grabbed his shoulders from behind, hauled him to his feet, and shoved him forward.

Weaving and bobbing, the rambler brought his fists up in front of his face. His eyes glinted like polished metal in the light from the fish tank. Although Terricel tried to swerve, the next punch, a quick jab, caught him on the cheekbone. His vision swam for an instant and his eyes watered, but he felt no pain. He screamed and lunged.

Faster than Terricel could blink, the rambler's foot lashed out. The tip of the heavy leather boot caught Terricel in the angle of his ribcage. His body jacknifed over and the air burst from his lungs. For an awful moment, he saw only the slow, sickening whirl of the room.

The next instant, the rambler's fist smashed into Terricel's nose. His head exploded and the world burst into black and red thunder. His legs crumbled under him, but unseen hands dragged him to his feet once more. Laughter pounded in his ears. The rambler yelled something, Terricel couldn't tell what.

More blows landed on Terricel's ribs and stomach. He staggered sideways, blood spurting from his nose and into his mouth.

“Hey, Jekk, give the kid a chance!” someone shouted.

The rambler straightened up, strutting and grinning. “I'll give him a chance, all right! A chance to go home in a cart!”

As the rambler turned to glance at his audience, Terricel hurled himself at him. Terricel didn't think, he just reacted the instant the rambler's attention shifted. He crashed into the rambler, knocking him off balance. The rambler bellowed as he grabbed Terricel around the ribcage with both arms. Terricel struck out with one fist and then the other, not caring what he hit as long as he hit something. His blows slipped off the hard-muscled back, even as the rambler's arms tightened around his chest.

A band of fire flared along Terricel's diaphragm and his vision grayed around the edges. He struggled for breath, but all that came was a strangled croak. All the same, he kept on swinging and trying to kick. Suddenly he felt the rambler's greasy hair under one hand. He knotted his fingers in it and yanked hard. The man's shoulders and torso jerked around, twisting sideways and down. The crushing pressure lifted from Terricel's ribs. He jumped back in surprise. Air flooded his burning lungs. The next thing he knew, the rambler was lying at his feet, splat on the sawdust floor.

Grunting curses, the rambler clambered to his feet. Some distant part of Terricel's mind urged him to get out of there now, before anything worse happened. Yet he couldn't force himself to move. He could only stand and stare, gulping air through his open mouth. Every nerve danced and tingled. His skin turned to fire. He wanted, more than anything else, for that corrosive bastard to get up so he could smash his face into bloody splinters.

The rambler was on his feet now, his face distorted and flushed. A knife appeared in his hand, the light from the fish tank glinting off the deadly-looking blade. He held it as if he meant to use it.

A figure stepped deftly between Terricel and the rambler. Through a red blur, Terricel caught only the shape of the man's shoulders and faded work shirt.

“Back off, Jekk, can't you see he's only a kid?”

“Ozone-friggin' crot-sucker, he's gonna pay — ”

“For what? For getting in a few lucky punches? C'mon, that happens to all of us.” The man in the work shirt sidled forward, holding out one hand, open and palm up. “Put the knife away and let's have another round.”

Terricel wasn't entirely sure what happened next, except that the rambler charged at him, the man in the work shirt swiveled, and then the rambler's knife made a tight arc and then ended up in the other man's hand. The rambler himself sprawled once more on the floor, this time face down. Appreciative laughter rumbled through the audience. The man in the work shirt turned and Terricel got a look at his face, homely and intent. Then the man grabbed the rambler by the back of his coveralls, heaved him to his feet, and shoved him bodily toward the front door.

Terricel watched them go. His heart pounded and his muscles ached. For an instant he thought of going after them. He sweated with wanting to hit something,
anything.
Then the silvery heat drained from his nerves as he realized what might have happened to him if the man in the work shirt hadn't stepped in. Shivering, he lowered himself into the nearest empty chair. The man in the work shirt came back a moment later, without either the rambler or his knife. Grinning, he clapped Terricel on one shoulder.

“How about that drink, kid?”

“Uhhh...” Blood drenched Terricel's upper lip. He brushed his nose with the back of one hand and immediately thought better of it. The slightest pressure caused instant and excruciating pain. “Thanks, I really appreciate your helping me, but you don't need to buy me a drink.”

“Harth's sweet tits, I was thinking of the reverse!” The man threw his head back and laughed. The sleeves of his dust-streaked shirt were rolled up, showing a line where the brown of his hands and muscular forearms gave way to incongruously milky skin. A tangy odor clung to him, a composite of animal sweat, manure, and sweet hay.

Somehow Terricel got to his feet, followed the man to the bar, and slapped some money on the counter. “Barkeep, another round for my friend and me.”

The man smiled as the barkeep set a full mug in front of him. He looked younger under the weatherworn wrinkles. Terricel thought with a start,
That could be me in ten or fifteen years.

“Hold still.” The man took out a clean-looking handkerchief, dunked it in the ale, and swapped it across Terricel's nose. “Good, it's stopped bleeding. You look almost human now. You'll have some pretty souvenirs tomorrow to take home to Mamma.”

Terricel lifted his fingertips to his nose and groaned.

“Your health.” The man tilted his head back and took a swig. “Harth's health.” Another swig. “What else? You're buying, you get to say.”

“Hell, why not my mother's health?”
These days, she needs all the help she can get.
Terricel gulped until his breath ran out. He ordered another round.

“I had a mother once,” the man said.

Not like mine, I bet. “Where was that?”

“Eh, you don't want to hear a bad luck story like mine. Some of it might rub off on you. You tell me yours.”

“My mother? Toast her, then forget her, that's the best.”

“I'll drink to that.” And they did. Shortly thereafter, they adjourned to a table with a pitcher of ale.

“What's your name, friend?”

“Terricel.”

“I'm Etch.” He tilted his head toward the table of onlookers, now absorbed in a dice game. “They thought you were one of those University students.”

“Me, too.”

Etch grunted and returned to his ale in companionable silence. Eventually Terricel got him talking about himself. Like his father and grandfather before him, Etch had raised horses on the high, rocky plains northeast of the Inland Sea. Not as good for horses, he said, as the Borderlands to the west, but good enough. Every season the free-ranging horses were penned, wormed, rough-broken and turned loose again, except for his working stock and those he'd picked to train for sale. He didn't earn much but the work satisfied him.

Etch embellished the virtues and foibles of his favorite horses — the stallion who got drunk on fermented windfall apples, the runty gelding who could open any gate devised by man, the mare who dropped twin foals year after year.

“I had a spotted mare once who could jump clear over a man's head and not mess a single hair,” Etch said nostalgically. “She loved winter-melon rinds, though they made her drool something awful. This man come buying stock to sell east, wanted her, wouldn't hear no. I didn't want to lose the sale on the rest of them, not at the prices he was willing to pay, so I said fine, and when he came to collect 'em I'd loaded her up on the fattest, juiciest rinds I could find. She had green foam all over her muzzle and down her chest. She saw him, thought he had more, came running over, high-tail. He changed his mind about her quicker than you could sneeze.”

From there, Etch's story turned tragic. His wife and infant son had developed huge, lumpy tumors that distended their abdomens until they could neither eat nor breathe. When the local medician could offer nothing more, Etch mortgaged his horse farm and brought them to Laureal City, to the hospital. The boy died soon afterward, but the woman lingered on, as one treatment after another failed. By the time she slipped away, the farm was forfeited. Etch was too proud to go back and hire on at someone else's ranch. He managed a stable on the northeast edge of the city, selling and renting horses to overland travelers. The place belonged to a city man who, according to Etch, thought he knew something about horses and ended up ruining them whenever he overrode Etch's advice, which was often.

“The work keeps me too busy to think, most times.” Etch glanced south, past the dingy walls. “I still have family back there — a sister and her kids. They run brush-sheep and she does a little weaving. Maybe someday I'll go back. It's only times like this, or Midwinter and Solstice, that I remember too much.” He raised his mug to Terricel. “Here's to forgetting.”

Terricel drank to forgetting.

Pound-pound-pound...

Someone kept clobbering Terricel over the head with sickening regularity. The bones of his skull had softened into exquisitely sensitive membranes, flexing and rippling with each blow.

Pound-pound-pound...

Why didn't whoever it was just take an axe to his cranium and get it over with?