A Sellsword's Resolve, page 5
part #3 of Seven Virtues Series
He turned to go, wanting, needing to get out of the cave, away from the smell of offal, the sweet sickly odor of rotten meat. He waved a hand at the flies buzzing maddeningly in his face and reached for the cloth hanging.
“Wait.”
The words were deep and jagged and hoarse, not sounds that should ever be made by a human throat, and Savrin tensed, turning slowly to look at the creature. “Master?”
“Send word. Aster. In Avarest. Tell him to take the woman. And the others.”
Savrin nodded hurriedly, his gorge rising despite his efforts. “Yes, master.” Then he was out and into the woods, his breath coming hard and fast, the forest air cool and damp on his fevered face and hands.
The thing in the corner watched the flap fall, and its disfigured face twisted into a mockery of a smile even as its flesh pulled the dead chickens further and further inside it. “Oh, Mr. Envelar,” it croaked, “you will learn the meaning of suffering.” It tried a smile again, but just then some bone flexed and re-broke with agonizing slowness as it sought to find its proper form and function, and the smile vanished in an instant, and there were only the screams. Always the screams.
CHAPTER SIX
Aaron jerked awake with a scream on his lips, not one of terror—or, at least, not only that—but one of rage. He clenched his teeth, managing to keep it in, but only just. He sat there in the darkness of the room, his naked chest and back covered in sweat, his breathing ragged. He didn’t remember what the dream had been about, knew only that it was a dream filled with rage and fire and blood. A red dream. A dream where he had not controlled himself, only been a helpless bystander to whatever it was that drove him onward, whatever creature or impulse carried him along in its wake.
I am Wrath.
Aaron swallowed hard, rubbing a hand across his dry mouth. The voice that had spoken had not been Co’s, nor had it been his own thoughts, but he felt that he knew it anyway. Co? He thought, are you there?
I’m here, Aaron, the Virtue said, and her voice sounded small and helpless and afraid, a child sitting in the dark, knowing something hunted her but not knowing what it was or what shape her terror might take.
What … what was that? Aaron said, struggling to get his breathing under control.
I don’t know, the Virtue responded, I only remember … anger. Rage.
Yes. And blood. He remembered that, too. Aaron glanced to where Adina lay beside him, sleeping peacefully, her own expression smooth and at rest. Does she not know what she lays beside? Aaron ran a hand through his sweat damp hair and saw that his hand was trembling. Is … is someone else there?
The voice, if it had been a voice at all and not his imaginings, some last vestige of the dream lingering before dissipating upon waking, did not answer. Aaron eased himself out of the bed, careful not to rouse Adina, and walked to where his shirt lay on the floor, discarded carelessly in the night’s passion. He pulled it on along with his cloak then slipped into his soft leather boots and stepped out of the room, easing the door closed behind him. He walked the hall aimlessly for a few minutes before coming upon the doors to one of the castle’s balconies.
Perennia was a port city and this high up the sea breeze would be cold. Just the thing he needed after visions of fire and burning. Aaron stepped out and was surprised to see another figure standing there in the darkness of the balcony, gazing out over the city stretched out beneath them. The figure turned, and the hood of his cloak blew off in the wind. Aaron let out a grunt of surprise as the light of the moon showed him the face of Captain Leomin staring back at him.
“Ah, Mr. Envelar,” the Parnen said, smiling and displaying his too-white teeth, “or should I say general?”
“Not unless you want to get thrown off this balcony,” Aaron said, walking up and propping his arms on the balcony railing beside Leomin.
“Ah,” The Parnen said, “Well, I suppose there is a precedent for that.”
“Sure.” Aaron said, “Also, I’ve done it before.”
Leomin laughed, “Ah, Mr. Envelar, you really do your best to hide your own cleverness, don’t you?”
Aaron grunted, “I’m not feeling particularly clever right now, Leomin.”
“No? And what, then, are you feeling?”
Aaron shook his head, finding that, now that they were speaking of it, he was having difficulty putting it into words. “I feel … assaulted. Worried, sure, about Belgarin, Kevlane, shit, even Ellemont. But more than that I feel assaulted. Like a mountain that’s slowly being chipped away at by thousands of men swinging thousands of picks. And angry. I feel that most of all. I’m always angry, Leomin.”
The Parnen frowned, “I noticed, Mr. Envelar, that you did not tell the queen or the others about that thing which you possess.”
Aaron raised an eyebrow, though whether the Parnen could see it in the moonlight or not, he didn’t know, and he didn’t much care. “Neither did you. I’m not the only one with a pain in the ass ball of light following me around, captain.”
Pain in the ass, am I? Co demanded.
Sorry, you’re right, Aaron thought back, massive pain in the ass.
He glanced at Leomin and saw the Parnen’s brow knit in concentration, no doubt having to assuage the anger of his own Virtue. “Anyway,” Aaron said, “point is, you didn’t seem particularly forthcoming about your own secret.”
Leomin nodded, “It’s true, Mr. Envelar. If my experiences have taught me anything, it is that a reckless man often becomes a dead one. Although, I’m sure we can trust Queen Isabelle and Adina’s brother Ellemont, I find myself reluctant to divulge such information when it is not strictly necessary that I do so.”
“Do you?” Aaron said, “Find them trustworthy?”
Leomin met his eyes, frowning, “Well, Mr. Envelar, you saved the queen’s life, after all. As for Ellemont—”
“As for Prince Ellemont,” Aaron interrupted, “we don’t know anything. And for a man who’s supposed to be a coward, it seems rather strange to me that he intends to travel here to see us.”
“Surely, though,” Leomin said, “if the man meant us harm, he would not put himself in such a situation as to be powerless, would he?”
Ooh, tell him about the snake, Co said.
Maybe another time, firefly. “I hope you’re right, Leomin,” Aaron said, staring off at the city, at the buildings beneath them where men and women lived and worked and died. From this height, they seemed no more than ants or bugs, busily constructing their nests, blind to the giant foot that would inevitably crush them all beneath its heel.
Cheerful today, aren’t we?
“I hope you’re right, Leomin,” he said again, “but, then, hope isn’t what’s kept me alive for this long.”
“No?” The Parnen captain asked, “Then what is, Mr. Envelar?”
Aaron sighed, shaking his head, “Never mind. Ellemont will be true, or he will not, and there is little I can do about it just now either way. Anyway, he’s not what’s bothering me. Tell me, Leomin, when you first received your Virtue, did you ever experience anything … odd?”
The Parnen captain cocked his head, raising an eyebrow, “By odd do you mean homicidal urges that send men fleeing and screaming for their lives in the night?”
Aaron cleared his throat, “Something like that. Yeah.”
“Not as such, Mr. Envelar, not as such. Although, for what it’s worth, I will say that the late Mirmanon posited, in his works, that the Seven Virtues, created as they were by the twisting and shaping of great magic and the death of what very well may have been the world’s best king, were possessed of both good and evil. Mothered by life and fathered by death, Mirmanon believed that each of them gave the man who wielded them a gift and a curse.”
“A gift and a curse,” Aaron repeated, his gaze wandering to the pale moon up above, shedding its weak light on everything beneath it. “Well, if you’ve been cursed, Leomin, I’m not seeing it. Unless, perhaps, you’ve been cursed to never stop talking but that seems less a problem for you and more for those around you, if you ask me.”
Leomin laughed at that but his expression quickly sobered, “There can be … difficulties in being so bonded with such powerful magic, Aaron. Think of it like this—you use a sword, yes?”
Aaron frowned, “If this is about to be some puzzle, Leomin, I might be inclined to use a sword right now. It’s late, and I’ve little time for riddles.”
The Parnen smiled but there was little humor in it, “Forgive me, Mr. Envelar, but let me ask for your patience. I only try to make you understand.”
Aaron sighed, “Go on.”
“Well, why do you carry a sword at all, Mr. Envelar?”
“Because it’s a damn lot easier to cut a man with a sword than with your bare hands.”
“Yes, but why the need to cut any man at all?”
“To protect myself,” Aaron said, “and not just me. Others too, people I care about.”
Leomin nodded slowly, his gaze meeting Aaron’s, “Just so, Mr. Envelar. But a sword, in the hands of a novice, can be as dangerous to the man wielding it and those he tries to protect as to those he tries to protect them from, can it not?”
It took a moment for Aaron to parse through that then he nodded. “What’s your point, Leomin?”
“My point, Mr. Envelar, is that as the bond with your Virtue strengthens, so will the gift it gives you. And the curse.”
“Great,” Aaron said, “And just how much worse can it get? I killed those slavers, Leomin. Nothing I haven’t done before and nothing I’d lose much sleep over. Except … I enjoyed it.”
The Parnen nodded, his expression troubled, “Yes, Mr. Envelar. Compassion is more than just the feeling of another’s grief or an understanding of another’s feelings. According to Mirmanon, true compassion, the real ability to be able to understand a person’s grief, not just to sympathize but to understand it, starts with kindness. It is only that, only in man’s essential goodness, that he finds the ability to know compassion, to truly feel what another feels. Kindness, Mr. Envelar. All the Virtues are double-edged. What, then, do you suppose is the opposing edge of such a sword?”
Aaron frowned, “Hate.”
“As you say.”
“And what of your own sword, Leomin?”
The captain’s gaze got a far-away look to it, his eyes unfocused as they stared into some memory that lay behind him, that he would, no doubt, have preferred to leave there. “A year after receiving the power, one of the priestesses tried to kill me.” He said, his tone matter of fact. He turned so that his back was to Aaron then pulled his cloak aside and lifted his shirt.
At first, Aaron didn’t see anything, the pale illumination the moon provided a poor light, but he looked closer and then grunted in recognition. Half way up the Parnen’s back, there was a puckered scar, the kind that was familiar to Aaron, as he’d had occasion to see them before. A knife made such scars.
“I was knelt in prayer within my room at the castle of the priestesses,” Leomin said, his voice empty and lifeless, “when I felt the knife’s bite. I screamed, but the others were long since asleep, and I knew they would not make it in time. You see, they changed shifts, the priestesses, one staying up to pray with me while the others slept each night. I screamed, and I fled to the opposite end of the room, turning around in shock.”
“The priestess was one of the younger of them, a pretty thing, if slight, and kinder than most all of the others. It’s funny, Mr. Envelar, but I would be lying if I told you she were not my favorite. She would bring me treats, from time to time, sneak them past the others and into my hands. In fact, it seems that I remember expecting such a treat after the finishing of my prayers. In that lonely place, the woman had become like a mother to me.”
He paused, letting out a slow, ragged breath. “Still, when I looked at her standing before me, I saw none of the woman I’d come to know, for where her features had once held kindness and understanding, now there was only a hate and rage beyond anything I had ever seen before. She screamed when she came at me—I will never forget the sound. Within that scream was rage and hate and madness. You understand, Mr. Envelar, she went mad with her desire to destroy me. Insane with it.”
“Damn,” Aaron breathed, as the Parnen let his shirt fall and turned to stare back out at the city with eyes that saw only the past, only the face of that woman whom he’d loved.
“I had lost my family, Mr. Envelar, my home and my friends, but I did not want to die. When she came at me, I fought her. She scratched and clawed, and I kicked and scratched and somehow I got hold of the knife. I did not feel relief or satisfaction when the blade went into her heart, only shame and revulsion for myself, a hatred that was, I suspect, similar to the one she’d felt. I knelt there, weeping, covered in the blood of the woman who had shown me kindness, and I considered turning the blade on myself. Finally, I did not. As I told you, I did not want to die. It is a memory that has been with me for nearly all of my life, one that will follow me even unto death, and if your Salen is real and comes to collect one such as I, then it is a truth I would hide even from his cold touch, if I could. I was six years old.”
“Damn,” Aaron said again as he watched a glistening tear wind its way down the Parnen’s cheek.
So much pain, Co said, and he could hear the sorrow in her voice. Poor, poor Leomin.
“The curse, then,” Aaron said. “The opposite of charisma. Revulsion, hatred. Leomin,” he said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder, surprised by how thin and frail it felt beneath his fingers, “the woman, the priestess. I’m sure that she cared for you. It was the curse, that’s all. If the gift is to be loved and revered by those you meet, then it follows that the curse is to be hated and reviled. It was not your fault.”
“Wasn’t it, Mr. Envelar?” Leomin said, turning to meet Aaron’s gaze, his eyes watery. “Oh, I’ve said such words to myself often enough, so much so that their meaning has been lost, and that they have become but a mantra, words used as a shield against the shame and the revulsion that always follow in my footsteps. Words I use to find sleep at night, and words I use to awaken myself in the morning, to drag my body from its bed when I want nothing more than to stay and let the world forget about dear Leomin. But you see, it was I who had the gift and the curse, and it was my job to control them. I did not, and a woman died for my mistake. The scar I carry is no more than I deserve, and, in truth, I think it quite less.”
“Gods, Leomin,” Aaron said, “you were six years old. Did these priestesses of yours not foresee this? Had they not learned of ways to deal with it?”
Leomin shook his head, “Something that you must understand, Aaron, is that the bond between a Virtue and its possessor is not constant from one pairing to the next. It is the same with people, after all. It is not something that can easily be understood, cannot be quantified or measured, for the bond is different for each man or woman.”
Aaron frowned, “So you’re saying what? That some of the others who paired with Aliandra, your Virtue, didn’t have the same problem?”
Leomin turned to meet his eyes, “I’m saying that none of them did, Mr. Envelar. My people have guarded this Virtue for hundreds and hundreds of years and not even in our oldest records had anything like it ever been mentioned. Aliandra and I, we have a strong bond—as you and your own Virtue do, for I have seen it working in you. Such a bond, such a connection strengthens the lines through which the bond’s power is carried. And power, Mr. Envelar, is neither wholly good or wholly evil.”
“Power is just power,” Aaron said.
“Not quite, I believe,” Leomin said. “It is my belief, Mr. Envelar, that power is both good and evil, only it is these things at the same time. There is no such thing as true evil power or true good. Imagine, if you will, two starving men fighting over a loaf of bread to feed their starving children. One man will be the victor and one the loser. The loser will die then or later, his children along with him. The winner will bring home this loaf of bread to his family, and they will eat and perhaps grow strong. But tell me, Mr. Envelar, is such a thing good or evil?”
Aaron frowned, considering the man’s words, but Leomin was not finished. “Power, by its very nature, is a thing of good and evil tied together so tightly that one cannot be separated from the other. That blade you carry? That is power, Mr. Envelar. The skill with which you use it is power.”
Aaron grunted, “It’s training, is what it is”
“Ah, Mr. Envelar,” The Parnen said, giving him a small smile, “I do so enjoy our talks. Consider how much the man whose life that blade takes cares of your training, of the years spent in sweat and strain and soreness for you to know it as well as you do. It matters not to him how you obtained such power, only that you have it. And who,” he said, frowning again, “can be blamed if that power is used wrongly but the one who wields it?”
Aaron decided to leave that bit alone for now. He’d have to do some more thinking on it but, just then, something else was bothering him. “What of the other priestesses, Leomin? What did they do?”
Leomin sighed. “They did what any would do, in such a situation. They believed her to be crazed, somehow—I believed much the same, I’m sorry to admit. You must understand, Aaron, this thing had never happened before. These women spend their lives protecting this power, bent in prayer over it, chanting their chants and singing their songs. They knew it, or so they thought, as well as they knew themselves. Better, in truth.”
He paused then and, for a time, there was only silence, yet Aaron did not speak, for he felt that the Parnen was not finished. “The next attack came a year later,” he said finally. “I had since grown accustomed to keeping a knife on my person, hiding it from the priestesses. I slept with that knife, Mr. Envelar, I woke with it and went to bed with it. I practiced at swinging it when there were none of the others around. It was a poor thing, really, but it pierced the second priestess’s flesh well enough, found her throat and let loose a flow of blood that would not be stopped until whatever internal reservoir it came from was emptied and withered in its emptiness.”
