K M Frontain, page 30
With the sight of them together, the thief’s trepidation turned into a smouldering sense of insult, but he said nothing, merely watched them approach, a mute on the topmost step. The recently acquired grass stains on his son’s blue suit gave him the answer to the sorcerer’s unexpected absence. Kehfen’s lips compressed to a rigid line, but other than that, he showed no sign of his disapproval. When they had crunched the gravel to the bottom step, he descended the flight to meet them.
“Did you get the information?” Marun said. His arm remained over Vik’s slender shoulders. It was a challenge, an insult, a declaration.
“You aren’t going to like it,” Kehfen said flatly, his eyes flitting away from the mocking possession he read in the sorcerer’s gaze.
The sorcerer frowned. “She didn’t know?”
“It’s not as if we had calendars! We can’t read them anyway!” Did his son have a bruised lip?
Damn them both. He did.
“Then what did she tell you?” Marun said impatiently.
“She remembers that the Ahams brothers were all hung the day before. It’ll be in the city records.” Kehfen’s eyes fixed on Vik’s. Vik’s skin flushed pink. The youth’s gaze flicked aside.
“And the hour of birth?” Marun said.
The thief’s attention reverted to the sorcerer. “Dawn. Some time around it.”
“Did you see the light? Was it the light before the sun actually rises?
Or the light after?”
“Like I said, I lifted Kehfrey up before the window when I first held him. The dawn light was on his face. It was just minutes after he was born.”
“Yes, but when he was born? Where was the sun?”
“There was only a glow in the sky. The sun hadn’t risen yet.”
Marun looked away, his face pensive. He had hours of calculations ahead of him. Days of calculations! He would have to make a chart for virtually every hour, perhaps every minute of that morning. “Was there a midwife?” he said, looking at the father again.
“Yes, but that’ll be no help to you. She couldn’t read or write either.”
“She wouldn’t necessarily remember one of hundreds of births that year,” Vik pointed out. “Just face it. No one keeps track of the days except those who are church going and have clerics to tell them.”
The boy was correct. There was nothing to go on but the date of a hanging and the vague memory of the hour. Marun loosed Vik’s shoulders and walked up the stairs without him.
“Where are you going?” Vik asked.
“I have things to see to,” he said. He continued on without turning back.
Vik scowled after him. He heard his father sigh heavily and glanced over. “What now?”
“I told you not to fall in love with that man!”
Vik cursed and stalked up the stairs. Kehfen let him go. There was nothing he could do about it now. It wasn’t as if he had a choice in the matter. His family was well and truly trapped, as the sorcerer’s mocking arm over his son’s shoulder had declared.
A small sound carried on the night air. He turned and looked across the lawn. A pair of dim figures approached from beneath the trees. Their shapes solidified into Wilf and the woman. They had managed to ruin her white dress. She had green grass stains all over it. She didn’t seem to mind. She laughed up at Kehfen when she spotted him.
“What are you doing alone out here?”
“Worrying,” he responded truthfully.
Wilf, who had been following her so that he might watch her fine backside, caught up quickly. “Worrying about what?” he said.
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Kehfen noted that Wilf had his tunic on inside out. “Everything.”
“That’s a lot to worry about,” the woman said. “Too late to bother now. Everything will just keep happening. Come inside. I’m heading for the pantry.”
“And what’s in the pantry?”
“Brandy,” she said with a smirk. “The answer to all useless worrying.”
Kehfen turned about and followed her up. That was a fine backside.
Very fine. She was a delectable little piece, to be sure. “Brandy sounds like a good idea,” he said casually.
He wondered when she’d get tired of Wilf. He wondered if Wilf would get tired of her. He doubted Wilf would. The boy never got tired of them until he thought he had them completely. Then, unless they were high paying marks, he dropped them flat. But Kehfen knew Wilf would never really have Nicky. She was just toying with him for her own amusement.
Did that mean he had another son to warn off? Wouldn’t do to have Wilf fall in love with her. Wouldn’t do at all.
“Gods, but she’s a piece,” Wilf whispered and shoved by him.
Kehfen’s anxiety evaporated. He was worrying too much. The boy was bound to get burnt some time. Nicky at least looked as if she wouldn’t singe him too badly. What had she to be angry over? She was a slave. She took her pleasure where she could. Wilf could never have her completely. It was a simple fact.
Tossing any remaining concern for Wilf aside, Kehfen followed Nicky through the hall and on toward the kitchen. “Brandy sounds like a very good idea to me,” he repeated firmly.
My, but that was a very fine backside.
***
Sometime during the day, the bottle had been dropped. The shards lay on the flagstones and the ghouls crouched around the broken glass, passing only the neck along—silently, intently, mindlessly. Satisfied with their readiness, Marun turned his back on the abominations and headed 257
back up the stairs. His slaves were prepared. In just a few hours, he would call the dead to hunt.
He barred the cellar door behind him. As he walked by the pantry, he heard laughter and paused. A man’s voice, then a woman’s—it was Hanicke and someone else. A third voice sounded from within. Kehfen.
She was with Kehfen and Wilf. She must be dipping in the brandy again.
No longer interested, Marun stepped onward, through the kitchen, and on to the main hall. He froze when he saw Vik in the library, brooding before the window. More quietly, the sorcerer made his way up the stairs, for he was disinclined toward having another row with his lover. It seemed to him that he and Vik were either hating each other or fucking, and never anything between. He preferred the fucking and had to admit the hate made this pastime more intoxicating, but he could do without the argumentation beforehand.
When he arrived at the child’s room, he saw that Kehfrey had for once obeyed him and was where he should be, sleeping in bed. Marun entered the chamber and seated himself in the chair from which he had watched before. He sat, he stared, and he wondered over the boy. The child was a mystery. There were too many gifts, too many powerful gifts.
Why all in one child? Was there a destiny in hand for him? Was it only this idiotic Ishpaäf?
Was Ishpaäf actually worth seeking?
He grimaced. Of all the religions of the world, the Pek factions were the only ones that worshipped no gods. Instead, it was this blasted Ishpaäf, the unattainable, cryptic aspiration. Well, at least unattainable for him.
He sighed noiselessly. He would solve the mystery of the child eventually. He must be patient. There was time for it.
The boy unexpectedly shifted toward him. “I thought you wanted me to sleep,” he said crossly. “If you’re going to just stare at me, I might as well get up and do something.”
“I thought you were sleeping.” He didn’t feel apologetic. He wanted to speak with the boy.
“I was. I heard you come in.”
“You sleep lightly.”
“Sometimes. Do you?”
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“Yes,” he admitted.
“Pop says I have a twitchy mind. Can’t stay asleep because of it.”
“He may be correct.” A twitchy mind? It was as good an explanation as any.
“Why did you come in?”
“I was wondering why you had so many gifts,” he replied honestly.
“What gifts?”
Marun smiled in the darkness. “You don’t know?”
“Do you mean the knife thing? I practiced.”
“The knife thing is a virtual impossibility for the average seven year old.”
“Oh.”
For a moment, they were both silent.
“Do you mean the Ishpaäf thing, then?” the child proffered next.
“That’s part of it.”
“What else is there?”
“The way you think far ahead, seeing the consequences like an adult.”
“Didn’t you mention that yesterday?”
“You know I did.” He got off the chair. “Are you still dressed?”
“Yes,” came the response.
“Come, then.” He walked away. Behind came the sounds of rustling linen. Small feet thumped to the floor. “You don’t need your shoes,”
Marun said, and disappeared around the bend of the door.
Kehfrey hurried from his room. The sorcerer led him down the wing, past the master bedchamber and on toward the workroom. He stopped before the spelled door and stared at the polished panels. Kehfrey remembered this door. This was where Marun had kept the Vessel. This was where Nicky had been locked in, where she had suffered from the terrible stifling heat for part of a day as punishment for saving his life. He would never forget her pale, tormented face. Never.
As Marun willed the ward away from the handle, Kehfrey kept his anger hidden. Presently he saw the black of the ward shift away from the handle. The moment the energy swirled aside, the sorcerer set his hand 259
on the latch and opened the door. He urged Kehfrey inward, an arm up to guard him.
“It wouldn’t kill you,” he said, responding to the child’s cautious glance, “but it would render you useless for the night. If there is any possibility that you might lead me to my soulstone, I would have you with the hunting party.”
“So why’d we come back here?”
Kehfrey stepped forward. The heat that assailed him after he passed under the lintel almost made him flinch. Some of the warmth was from the recent sunlight, for the awful heat wave had continued unabated despite yesterday’s storm; but as well, the ward in the fireplace had kept the temperature up and driven off the moisture in the air. With the window shut, the work chamber was a furnace. Kehfrey was surprised nothing had caught fire beyond the hearth.
“I have something I wish to read to you,” Marun said without a sign of emotion. He uncovered a glow stick standing on the table. He didn’t seem the least bothered by the heat, but Kehfrey supposed the cold black he hid beneath his skin took care of it for him. His master went to the further side of the room, where the small shelf of books stood against the wall adjacent the hearth. He took one volume out, selecting it without hesitation, and set it on the bare table in the centre of the room. Kehfrey came up beside him and peered at the book curiously. The leather cover was embossed with three strange symbols. Gold gilded the indentations.
“What’s that, then? You didn’t show me letters like those yesterday.”
“These are glyphs,” his master responded. “Each symbol has a meaning.”
“Really? What do they say?”
Marun read them in the exact language they were written. “Mahall’s Words,” he said in dwarvish.
“Who’s Mahall?” the boy questioned. He spoke in Winfellan as usual.
“He’s a dwarven god.”
“A god! A dwarf? Are they real?” And would one let a man put a fist up his ass? Kehfrey seriously doubted it. Be the last thing that fool mortal would do. Probably only had to lift a single insulting finger into the air and that was the end. Mayhap a mortal only had to think the thought and thereafter die. Could a god read one’s mind?
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“Yes, they are real,” Marun answered. “Why shouldn’t they be? Elves are real.”
“Have you seen a god?”
“Yes. Once. A dragon.”
“A dragon? But not a dwarf?”
“No.”
There was no way anyone could put a fist up a dragon’s ass without getting lost in the dragon. One little squat, and farewell mortal; until he got shitted out later, of course.
“Oh. Then how do you know if a dwarf god is real?” he said with a serious, ever so guileless expression.
Marun laughed. “I’ve seen dwarves. Will you settle for that?”
“Fair enough, I suppose,” the boy answered half-heartedly.
Marun smiled at his reservation. He relented and gave the boy some tidbits of information, just to please him. “Dwarves aren’t as folktales would have them. Not as short, not as squat, and not nearly as ugly. Most pass for human. The true name of their species is the Ryn.”
“If they aren’t so different from us, why do folktales have them otherwise?”
He shouldn’t have bothered. It would be one question after the other, and never to the matter at hand. “It’s only because they’re shorter than most humans and never get taller, no matter how well fed.”
“Oh. Will you tell me about the dragon later?”
Apparently the child could tell he was becoming irritated. Well, good.
“Of course.” He retrieved the book and sat in the only armchair the room boasted, after which he opened the tome to a particular page. Just before he began reading again, the child interrupted him.
“Why were there three symbols, but you only said two words?”
“The smaller symbol was for ownership. It was the one in the centre.
It showed that the words belonged to Mahall, that he spoke them. Do you see that the two are attached by a small scroll?”
“Oh,” Kehfrey said, apparently understanding.
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Marun smiled again. The boy was quick. The sorcerer took a breath and read a passage, once more in the language the words were written.
“They shall not rise but for those that know their wants,” he uttered.
“What are we talking about here?” Kehfrey said, again in Winfellan.
“Dragons,” Marun responded in the modern dwarf tongue.
“Dragons!” the boy cried in Winfellan, delighted. Marun seemed bent on telling about them after all.
“Say it the way I did,” Marun demanded, still in dwarven.
“I just did!”
“No, you didn’t,” his master refuted. Kehfrey eyed him askance and muttered something barely audible. “What was that?’” the sorcerer snapped, now in their native tongue.
“You’re doing like Olomo!”
“And what exactly do you mean?”
“He was like that yesterday! And this morning! Acting like he was saying something different than he was saying!”
“He was. Only you have it wrong. He was saying something different from what you thought you were hearing.” The boy gaped at him. Marun eyed him intently. The child really had no idea.
“Come here,” he directed, his tone gentle. Kehfrey approached obediently. Marun turned the book about and pointed at a symbol.
“Listen carefully,” he said and uttered the word dragon. “What did you hear?”
“Dragon.”
Once more, the child had responded in Winfellan. Marun sighed and bolstered his patience with a calm reminder that the boy was only seven and really quite innocent and ignorant, odd little thief though he was.
“Once again, Kehfrey,” he said. “This time, look at my mouth. Don’t assume you know anything. Listen to the exact sounds I am making.”
The boy frowned at him. His expression was confused. When he looked down at the strange symbols on the page, he did so with a worried glint to the hazel of his eyes. Marun hauled his head back up by the chin. Carefully, slowly, he pronounced dragon again. There was an instant wherein the child looked at him blankly, but then his eyes just 262
grew wider and wider. Marun’s smile matched the motion, growing wider and wider as well. The child had finally understood.
“Gods bust it!” Kehfrey whispered.
Marun nodded at him. “You hear it now?” He released the boy’s captured chin. Kehfrey nodded, mute with awe. “Good.” Marun turned the page. “Listen to this.”
He read off a line that had escaped him for ages and afterward looked up at Kehfrey eagerly, only to find the boy gazing at him blankly again.
“Kehfrey, I want you to translate this time,” he directed firmly.
“What?” The child blinked in surprise. “I was listening to all those rough sounds coming out of your mouth. How are you doing that?”
“Never mind that now! Just translate!” Gods! Had he ruined the boy’s gift? He repeated again. This time, when he looked up, the child was frowning at him. “Did you understand?”
“That’s all wrong. You make no sense at all.”
Marun shut his eyes in disappointment. He had ruined it. He should never have forced the child to comprehend his gift.
“Say it again, but more slowly,” Kehfrey asked him.
Marun raised his lids. He repeated a third time, this time without looking down. He was certain he was not going to have a translation. The child glowered at him throughout.
“It’s not the same language as the first one, is it?” the boy said.
Marun blinked. Was that it? Could that be why? “It’s a dead language,” he disclosed.
“Dead! How can a language be dead?”
“No one speaks it anymore,” he answered simply.
“Then what’s it doing in a book?”
Marun turned the book about so the child could scrutinize it properly. “This line is a transcription from the face of a rock in the Jahama Mountains. This is all that remains of Mahall’s original written word, scored upon the granite with his nail some two million years ago.”
“Two million years!” Kehfrey repeated with due reverence. Though he’d never heard the denomination before, he acquired the clear sense it was a massive figure. “He must be dead by now. No one can live that long.”
