From Across the Clouded Range (31 page)

The boat shattered. Ipid was lifted
from the craft and carried into the very center of the tornado,
into the gaping maw of the devil. He hit the funnel and was
engulfed by the creatures. Their tendrils tore him apart, smashed
the air from his lungs, and snapped his bones. Teeth found his
arms, legs, and neck. Talons shredded his skin and tore at his
organs. As the life left his body, he looked out across the storm
one last time and was left with the perfect image of chaos dancing
before his darkening eyes.

#

Ipid's eyes shot open. He swallowed
the scream that was staggering on his lips.

The dream slowly faded,
but he could still feel the teeth pushing through his skin, the
tendrils crushing the life from him, the claws ripping at his guts.
Shaking off the residual terror, he shut his eyes and drew several
deep breaths.
It was only a
dream
, he repeated to himself.
You are a grown man. A dream cannot hurt
you.
But he had never had a dream as
disturbing or real as that one, had never felt the pain of a dream
even after he woke.

He took another breath and opened his
eyes. He found himself in the middle of a round tent with a high
ceiling supported by a single wooden pole that appeared to have
been recently crafted from a nearby tree. He was laid out on the
hard ground like a sack of potatoes. Red light filtered through the
bottom of the tent suggesting that it was near sundown.
Reflexively, he brought a hand to his head and rubbed the throbbing
lump that must have sent him to oblivion. Considering the lump
brought a cold wave of memories – another nightmare that exorcised
the first.

I was at my table,
surround by villagers all wanting something. Dasen and Teth were
away.

Riders – from the west?
Huge men. Chaos. People running everywhere. Swords drawn. Killing,
Indiscriminate killing. By the Order, such brutality.

Where are my guards?
Elton, where is that cursed Morg? Dead, already dead. On the ground
with countless arrows piercing him, a knife clutched in his big
hand.

Panic becomes fear. People
herded together. Fear, paralyzing, barely bridled. Fire in the
village. No one moves.

Somehow, I was at the
front. "Please, no more. I'm the one you want!"

No response.

Confusion. Foreign
language? Foreign dress? So many? How? Why?

Waiting. Children crying,
men whimpering. More questions. No answers. Smoke all
around.

A young man appears. "I'm
the one you want. Leave them alone!"

A response, but what
language is that? Riders upon me. "No!"

Darkness.

I'm
alive
, Ipid told himself when the memories
ended. He was not sure that he believed it. Alive for what? Ransom.
And the villagers? Dasen? He had no answers and only one way to
learn.

Ipid rose to his knees, explored his
surroundings, and was frozen by a movement in the shadows. Less
than an arm’s length away was his captor looking down at him from a
collapsible stool. Ipid filtered through the shadows surrounding
the man’s face and recognized him as the one he had seen earlier,
the last face he had seen before the world went dark. He watched
his captor carefully, but the young man did not appear to notice
him. He sat unmoving, puffing on Ipid’s own long-stemmed pipe. The
smell of the smoke drifting from the pipe revealed that it was the
fine Blyth blend that had been in his pocket.

Anger rushed through Ipid at the
thought of this man smoking his tobacco in his pipe. He nearly made
a point of it before he realized how petty an issue it was given
the autocracies this animal had already committed. With effort, he
choked back his indignation and looked instead at the
man.

From what he could see through the
shadows – beyond the red glow at the bottom of the tent, the space
was lit only by a single candle on a small table – the man was big
but not as large as he remembered from the green. He was also
younger than Ipid would have expected, likely in his late twenties.
He was handsome with a solid physique, short sandy hair, and
well-proportioned features, but most surprising was the way he
looked at his captive. He watched Ipid with the aloof disregard of
a king facing his lowliest peasant

Ipid did not appreciate that look. No
matter how this petty criminal thought he had turned the tables,
Ipid was an important man, so he positioned himself to confront the
overblown cutpurse. He did not rise above his knees, but he
stiffened his back and planted his fists on his hips. He put on his
sternest possible glare and locked eyes with the young man. The
bandit’s expression did not change.

Ipid was stunned by the man’s
restraint. Surely, he was dying to share the details of his plan,
to gloat over the capture of one of the world’s wealthiest men.
Ipid was likewise ravenous for information about his son, Tethina,
Rynn, and the villagers, but the silence stretched until it was
obvious that Ipid would have to speak first. "I think we both know
why you are here, so you might as well dispatch with the
drama.”

The man didn't even twitch.

“
What have you done with
the villagers? I am the one you want, so if you leave them be, I
will cooperate as best I can.” Another pause.

The bandit just sat there – a statue
except for the puffs he drew from the pipe.

"You know that the forest masters will
find you. Even if you get the money, how far do you think you will
get with it? Now, if you let me and the villagers go and leave
immediately, you may be able to escape the noose, but if you
continue with this, I guarantee that it will take you sooner or
later." When there was still no response, Ipid’s words sputtered
out leaving him lolling like a half-wit.

The bandit struck. His hand flew
across the space separating them. A backhanded blow sent Ipid to
the ground with his ears ringing and a tendril of blood seeping
from the side of his mouth.

After a minute to recover, Ipid
brought himself back up and glared. It was met by another blow,
harder than the first. Still, the man did not change his expression
or posture even as he struck. Nothing but his hand moved, and it
came so fast that it seemed like an illusion. He did not even miss
a beat in the steady workout that he was giving the long-stemmed
pipe.

Ipid spent a long moment on the ground
soothing his temper after the second blow, and when he rose, he
tried to look meek. He kept his hands open in his lap, his head
down, and his eyes passive. He did not speak and fought the
terrible temptation to rub the painful bruise that was forming
around his eye. The new posture had the desired result. The
outlaw’s mouth crept up around the pipe stem, and he nodded in
approval.

The smile made Ipid relax, but it was
betrayed by the whistle of a blade released from its sheath. The
sword hummed through the air and stopped at Ipid’s throat. Its
razor point pricked his skin, and he jerked back reflexively. The
sword followed and transformed the prick into a trickle of blood
that ran down his neck onto the collar of his shirt. Amazingly, the
man on the stool brandished the long blade without seeming to move
at all. The sword had appeared out of nowhere, and even as he held
it, he sat in the same relaxed position, the pipe clinched between
his teeth.

Ipid could not remember ever having
been so still – he did not breathe. His eyes darted from man to
blade and back again. One wrong move and his throat would be
slashed, but the bandit acted as if nothing was happening at all.
He moved his free hand to the pipe and pulled it from his lips
sending tendrils of smoke boiling from his mouth. He rose, holding
the sword with a precision that would shame the best surgeon in
Liandrin, and began to speak.

Ipid did not understand a word he
said. The language was like none that he had ever heard. He assumed
that it was a code language. But why use a code language with just
him in the room? It didn’t make any sense. The man spoke only a few
sentences by Ipid calculation then asked, "Yahthu ti?" He nodded as
if expecting an answer. Ipid took the phrase to mean, "Do you
understand?"

He had not understood a word, but the
meaning was clear: the man had only contempt for him and would have
no problems killing him like a rat he had found in his pantry. Ipid
carefully nodded, still wary of the sword at his throat. The bandit
smiled again and patted him on the bottom of the chin with his
blade before sliding it into the sheath at his side. Ipid’s hands
went to his throat to stanch the stream of blood, but he had
received worse from his barber. He marveled at the bandit’s
control.

Beyond confusion, Ipid looked at his
captor, hoping that he would explain the joke, but the young man
was pounding the ash from the pipe as if his captive no longer
existed. He placed the instrument on the table with casual
disinterest before returning his pale eyes to Ipid.

Ipid suddenly wished that he could
disappear. The young man’s green eyes were hard and unforgiving,
but far more frightening was the power reflected in those eyes.
This man knew power. Far more than just the power over life and
death – though that was part of it – this man knew what real power
was, the kind that kings held and lesser men coveted. Worse yet, he
knew that he possessed that power. A shiver rose up Ipid’s spine.
He needed no more proof that this man was far more than a common
thug, and for the first time, he was truly afraid.

“
A - rin.” The man pointed
to himself with an assertive gesture. His voice was rich, strict,
and disciplined. Power flowed even from those two
syllables.

Ipid guessed that the man was giving
his name. He tried to respond to the gesture without revealing his
crushing fear. "Arin is your . . . ."

A fist hit him between the
eyes.

The blow left Ipid on the edge of
consciousness, and it was a long time before he was able to sit
again. When he did rise, holding his hands up to ward off another
attack, the man, Arin, gestured to him then back to himself and
made a yapping movement with his hand. He repeated the gesture, but
Ipid was too dazed to understand. Arin made one more attempts. When
there was still no sign of recognition, he struck.

Ipid felt his now split lip swelling
as he pulled himself from the ground. Arin made the same gesture.
This time he accompanied it with "Arin va Uhram Tavuh.”

The strange ritual was finally clear.
The man's name was Arin, but Ipid was to use his full title to
address him. At least, Ipid hoped that was correct. He built
himself up and tried it. "Arin va Uh-ram Ta-vu." He stumbled over
the unfamiliar words but kept his head low in an attempt to look
humble as he spoke. He expected to receive another cuffing for the
effort and was braced for it, but it did not come.

His eyes rose. Arin was smiling. The
young man gestured toward him and waited for a response. The answer
was obvious, but how could this bandit not know the name of his
captive. "Ipid Ron. . . ."

An open hand landed across Ipid’s
cheek. It was not as hard as the other blows he had received, but
it struck a tender area and stung enough to bring small
tears.

When he had recovered, Arin pointed at
him and said, "Te-adeate Ipid."

Ipid guessed that he had a title as
well, though the way Arin said the words, it was not a coveted one.
He pointed at himself and repeated the title and name. The effort
earned him another smile.

Arin considered his captive for a long
time after that, weighing him with his eyes, then turned to the
small table at his side. He produced a simple wooden writing
instrument, a leather-bound book, and a bottle of what appeared to
be ink and handed them to Ipid, who was thoroughly confused. It
appeared that this man did not speak the common Imperial tongue,
which was not unheard of in some corners of the world but
exceedingly rare in the Kingdoms. The man and his followers could
come from the swamps and jungles of Sylia, Ipid supposed, but that
was far away and these men certainly did not look like the small,
brown Sylians Ipid had seen. Or they could be Morgs. But Morgs that
rode horses and didn’t wear beards?

"Te-adeate Ipid.” Arin
pointed to the book, cutting Ipid’s contemplation short. The
gesture was obvious, so Ipid wrote the words at the top of the
first page, pausing only to consider the spelling of
te-adeate
. Arin grabbed
the book when he was finished, studied the words, then scribbled
next to them. When the book was returned, five unrecognizable
characters were scrawled next to Ipid’s name.

Arin did not give him a chance to
study those characters. "Arin va Uhram Tavuh." Ipid made his best
guess on the spelling of the words and handed the book back to
Arin.

The strange lesson carried on like that for
some time with Arin pointing at objects around the tent and giving
them a name in his language. Ipid would reply with the translation,
write the word on the page, and hand it to Arin, who would add one
or two characters of his own. Ipid was beaten if he misunderstood
one of Arin’s cryptic gestures – making the lesson like a cruel
version of a child’s guessing game – but they went through objects,
then to actions, and finally colors and sizes without breaks until
Ipid was on the verge of hysteria.