The Fire and the Fog (26 page)

‘Before I could do anything, or move, there
was a man in my room. He had a beard, and a sword, and he…’ Gel
looked down at his hand, at the scabbed stumps where his last three
fingers had been.

‘I…I woke up, and I found the lute, and I
went to the tree, and…’

‘Right’ Dan’r said, looking away from Gel.
‘We go south. If we cut straight through the fields, we should hit
the road to Wraegn late today, or tomorrow.’

‘Wait!’ Gel cried. ‘You said you knew who did
it. Tell me!’

‘I’ll tell you what I’ve figured out as we
walk.’ Dan’r didn’t wait before stepping off the dirt road into the
field to the right of the road. But he did look back at Gel, to see
if he would follow.

Did he have a choice? He hadn’t exactly been
doing well on his own. And if the old man knew something…

Thoughts of running away that had hovered in
Gel’s mind since the man first grabbed him clashed with the promise
that his parents were still alive, and the promise that the old man
knew more about them.

Gel stepped off the road to follow, and the
two started off through the fields, heading south.

‘Where do you want me to start?’ Dan’r
asked.

‘Why are you here?’

‘…luck. I was wandering, aimlessly. I heard
your music, followed it, found you. Found your town.’

‘No, why are you here. Following me; helping
me?’

‘…because I need something from you.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll tell you that later. Next
question.’

‘Who did it?’

‘I…I don’t know.’

‘You said you did!’

‘I know. I have an idea…but…look. I know a
few things. First, it wasn’t bandits. If it were raiders out of
Heyle, they would have killed a lot more people, and taken a lot
more from the homes they looted. Second, whoever it was went south.
A group of over two hundred. There can’t have been that many
attackers, so…’

Gel processed the words as Dan’r spoke them.
Felt the little flame of excitement catch, felt it flicker to life,
then explode.

‘They could still be alive!’ Gel yelled,
excited. ‘We’ve got to catch up to them!’

Gel set himself to run. He’d catch up to
them, he’d find his parents, set them free, set the whole village
free, and they could all go back.

Dan’r’s hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

‘Hold up kid. Slow down.’

‘Let me go! I’ve got to find them!’

Gel felt himself spun being around, felt
Dan’r grab him by his other shoulder as well. The old man kneeled
down, looking Gel in the eye.

‘It doesn’t work that way Gel. We have to go
slow, conserve our energy. Otherwise you’ll collapse before you
make it to the road. We’ve also got to plan. There could be a
hundred soldiers there. We’re two, and one of us can’t fight.’

Gel looked into Dan’r’s eyes, slowly, sadly,
nodded that he understood.

Dan’r let go of Gel’s shoulders, started
walking southwards again, and after a second Gel began following
him again.

They walked in silence once more, walked
through fields of chest-high grass. The sun shone down on them from
its place in the pastel blue sky, the sounds of the world
surrounded them; the rustle of wind, the constant hum of crickets;
the awkward silence of two people who can’t quite figure out what
to say next.

Gel found himself wondering what he should
say. Should he be angry with Dan’r, for not knowing who it was that
attacked and destroyed his village? Or should he be happy, happy
for the chance that his parents were still alive?

He was mulling his feelings over in his head
when Dan’r spoke again.

‘I’m not from here, you know.’ He said,
continuing to walk. It seemed he didn’t believe in breaks of any
kind.

‘What do you mean?’ Gel asked.

‘This land of yours. Dohm, you call it. I’m
not from here. I come from a land called Alta, far, far to the
East. I was on a ship, years and years ago. I was swept off the
side, woke here.’

‘It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not,
but…where I come from, what you call magic is, not exactly common,
but it exists. It’s how I made that lute.’

‘Show me. No, teach me.’

‘Look, Gel, it’s…not something that can be
taught. What you call magic, I call Art. It’s…it’s paintings,
sculpture, beautiful music, powerful words…’

‘I play music! Why can’t I make things?’

‘It doesn’t work that way. Music changes
things, it doesn’t make them. Only Art can create things.’

‘So you can’t teach me?’

‘No, I can’t. Not Art anyway.’

‘Oh.’

***

After the revelation that Dan’r couldn’t
teach him magic, the boy had barely spoken. Dan’r could have told
him more; could have told him so much more, but…

not yet.

The boy was young yet, and without a
watcher…no, Dan’r couldn’t risk him yet.

Dan’r created a campfire, pulled food and
drink, from paper in his cloak. He thought the boy might be
impressed. And each time Dan’r made something, it seemed like he
was, for a few moments at least. But then the realization that he
couldn’t do the same sunk into him. Somehow Dan’r’s best efforts
were just making the boy more depressed.

‘Why don’t you play something?’ Dan’r said,
breaking the silence that had reigned throughout the pairs’ dinner,
interrupted only by the crackling of the wood in the campfire as it
slowly burnt itself down.

Gel looked down at the lute at his side. He
hadn’t picked it up again since tuning it upon receiving it, hours
ago.

‘What do you want me to play?’ he asked,
picking up the lute gently by the neck, cradling it on one leg.

‘Why not play something warm? Might be cold
tonight. Might as well have something warm before sleep.’

‘Warm…I could do…’ Gel thought about it. He
could do any of Heineths marches, but while warm, those were also
stuffy; stiff. None of the ballads he knew fit warm either. They
would either feel too soft, or too harsh. Warm, yes. Comfortable?
No.

‘I can do warm’ Gel said to himself, and
began to pick at the strings of his lute.

He started slow, but it was a measured
slowness. Each string picked smoothly, with intent clear. He
allowed each note to sound fully before moving to the next. It was
a slow start, a start sounding like what it felt to sit at night in
front of a slowly waning fire, wishing the fire were larger.

Then Gel began to play faster, more
intricately. It was not a swift rush over the strings; that would
feel more like the insistent warmth of a too-hot summer day, the
sun beating down, every action fraught with exhaustion and the
dream of a cool dark room.

No, what Gel played was a smooth rush of
notes, each phrase always ending higher, and always even; measured.
It evoked, for him at least, lying in bed on a Sunday, covered in
blankets. It suggested warm tea, and a chair pulled close to a
fireplace.

Gel noticed something strange as he played
though. His right hand with its missing fingers…it felt better to
play with than ever it had whole. In all his lessons, Gel had been
taught to pick with all four fingers. Now that he was down to one
full finger, one part finger, and a thumb…it felt more natural. It
should have been harder to play; should have been almost
impossible. But it was easier, better.

Gel lost himself in his music. It had been
days since he’d last played, and finally being able to play again
was what he needed. As he played, Dan’r sketched something, but the
intermittent scratchings of charcoal on parchment were lost in the
sea of notes coming from the lute. Gel didn’t notice.

When he finally finished, Dan’r looked up his
drawing.

‘Go to sleep Gel. We start moving again early
in the morning.’

And Gel was comfortable enough that he simply
nodded, put his lute beside him on the ground, lay down, and
slept.

I

When she finally woke, Erris’ world was
filled with confusion; with pain; and with fear.

The confusion was temporary. Questions like
where she was, what had happened; these questions were answered
quickly as memories of the night before surfaced, as awareness of
the world around her came slowly into focus. She was tied to
Marmot, who was still walking, the old wagon still trailing noisily
behind, the left wheel now squeaking every turn or so. What had
happened? She had lost everything; her brothers, her sisters, her
parents; everything. Her home too, likely. Lost as she was, she had
no idea which direction it was.

With the abatement of the confusion came the
pain. Pain from the loss, keen and sharp, hurt more than her
bleeding wrists or bruised thighs. Her wrists were rubbed red and
raw from the ropes that bound them, her thighs turned blue from a
night of riding. She may not remember the ride, but the pain was
real enough. The two pains combined; the physical and the mental,
were too much together. As soon as she started thinking of them, as
soon as she realized they existed, she locked them away, forced
herself to forget them, forced the tears she felt were coming to
quiet, winced and blinked those already there away.

And that’s when the fear materialized. Fear
of being lost, alone, hungry, and practically naked. Fear of being
young, and having nowhere to go, and no-one to turn to. The fear
was even more paralytic than the pain. Through the confusion and
the pain, Erris sat up; not tall, but at least up. Eyes closed,
breathing deeply, she dealt with her confusion and locked away her
pain. With the arrival of the fear though, she sobbed once, almost
a surprised gasp, escaping the prison-like confines of her chest
when she least expected.

And then her back was bowed, her face buried
in Marmot’s mane, and more sobs came. They were a tidal wave of
choking coughs that forced themselves to the wall, crawled through,
tumbling over each other, eventually petering out.

The fear, and the tears that came with it,
lasted a while, and all that while Marmot kept up his slow,
plodding pace along the heavily-packed dirt road.

Eventually, when Erris was finally able to
straighten herself, to overcome the crippling fear that had
overwhelmed her, she set to work.

‘I am alone’, she thought to herself as she
stopped Marmot, wrapping her hands around the rope that bound her
wrists together and pulling to bring the horse to a stop. ‘I am
alone, but I am still alive. I’ll get out of this, get myself free,
and then…and then…’. Panic hit Erris briefly, but she shook her
head and shrugged her shoulders, throwing the panic into the dark
depths of forgotten memory and locking it there with her pain and
fear. ‘One thing at a time,’ she thought. Then she started biting
at the ropes that bound her.

Time is a problem, in that it travels much
like a river. It moves always in the same direction, but it twists
and turns, it moves swiftly in the deeps and crawls by the bank. As
a river moves, so does time. It twists and turns, sometimes passing
a person by before they can notice it, sometimes taking an eternity
and going nowhere.

Erris felt as if it took her hours to twist,
bite, and gnaw at the tight ropes before she managed to slip her
wrists free, but really her freedom cost her no more than a half
hour. That half-hour of twisting, pinching, and biting pain was met
by a few scant seconds of cool relief when she slipped her hands
forcefully from their bonds, and then the sharp, throbbing pain of
skin rubbed raw was back. How she wished that the pain had lasted
seconds and the bliss of relief hours.

But it hadn’t, and only time would bring
further relief.

Finally free of her bonds, Erris moved a leg
up and over Marmot’s back, slid down till her feet touched the hot
dirt road, let go of Marmot, and immediately collapsed. She wasn’t
in pain, or maybe she was and had just chosen to ignore it, but her
bruised legs wouldn’t hold her up. They were cramped, knotted,
trembling.

Determined, she rubbed at her legs till
feeling returned, stood using the side of the wagon as support, and
began to slowly take stock of her situation. There was a blanket in
the back of the wagon, the one that her brother and sister had been
under earlier. She grabbed it, wrapped it around herself, for
modesty as much as warmth.

She was lost, yes; she was alone, yes. But
she did have some things going for her. She had Marmot and the
wagon, even if the wagon was empty of all but the collection of
books the old man had given her what seemed like such a long time
ago. She also had the soldier’s sword, which still hung slung on
Marmot’s pommel from…earlier.

All this meant that her priorities would be
water, food, and clothing, in that order. Which meant she needed to
find a farm, a village, even a cottage, and…well, she could worry
about how to get what she needed when she found somewhere to get
them from. Maybe she could sell or trade the sword, or the wagon.
The books and Marmot…She would never let them go.