NexLord: Dark Prophecies (17 page)

Aerin paused to think for a
moment.   “You said fear is not as lasting as
friendship, but I could be afraid of something my whole life.”

Mara nodded, “And some people are, but let me
give you a simple example.  Were you afraid of the
Togroths when they attacked your family?”

Aerin bowed his head and said quietly, “Yes,
more than anything.”

“And are you afraid of them killing you right
this minute?”

“No, they can’t get to me here in this tavern
with Tocor nearby.”

“You see, fear comes and
goes.  Now, is Gandarel your friend?”

“Yes!”

“And tomorrow, when he laughs at you when you
trip and fall, will you no longer be his friend?”

“Well, I would be cross with him.”

“True, but would you lose your friendship for
him if that happened?”

“No, I suppose
not.”     

“So, what would it take, what crime could he
do that you would not support him, try to help him and be there for
him?”

“Nothing, I guess, I’m his friend.”

Mara smiled, “Of course, and I would
expect nothing less of you.  There, you see the
difference?”

Aerin nodded, “I guess you are right.”

Now Mara laughed softly, “I am always right,
but do people listen?  Now did you have any other
questions about the Wraiths?”

"You have told us that a strong person can
resist the Wraith's power, is there any way to destroy them?

Mara nodded slowly.  "To become a
Wraith everything except hatred is destroyed, this includes even
their life."

Lor spoke derisively, "You're saying Wraiths
are dead men walking around?"

"Or women, we hate just as strongly as
men.  It is true; their hate alone animates the corpse
that was their living body before they were turned."

"If they're dead, how come they don't stink
and rot?" Dono demanded.

Mara nodded.  "You jest, Dono, but
you are not far from the truth.  Their bodies must be
preserved, so they use a treatment that is both chemical and
magical.  It keeps them from deteriorating, but it makes
them a little hard, like wood.  They also tend to smell
of corruption, though this can be masked with fragrant
ointments.  This treatment has an Achilles heel; they
must avoid water at all costs.  Even the proximity
disrupts their power.  Direct contact with water is
deadly to their body, though not the hatred that animates the dead
tissue."       

Gandarel laughed.  "You mean to
tell me that a bucket of water is all that it
takes?  Then why is anyone afraid of these things?"

"They are fast and strong and their powers to
control your mind through any hatred you harbor make them deadly
enough, Gandarel."

Gandarel didn't like the slight rebuff in
Mara's tone, so he changed the subject by calling down the table,
“Hey, Aerin, oh Grand Master of Dull Jokes, since you are now of
such exalted status why don’t you tell us which is the best weapon
to take into battle?”

Mara answered him instead, “If you can answer
your own question correctly, Gandarel, I will consider you ready to
take your test as well.”

Gandarel glanced toward the door, where two
of his Guardsmen stood at sentry position; both wore the customary
swords
of the guard.  He
considered choosing the sword, as it was his favorite weapon, but
something in Mara’s crafty eyes told him an easy answer was not
going to suffice.

He decided to try and
outguess
her, “There is no ‘best’ weapon.”

Mara started to say
something
but stopped when Gandarel continued.

“It is different for each
person.  For
Tocor,
the
staff is the best
weapon
while for
Yearl it is his sticks.  For
me,
the best weapon is the sword.”

“Actually, you are wrong.  The best
weapon is the same for everyone,” Mara corrected him.

“If that is the case then it would be a
sword,” he answered, deciding he should have gone with his first
choice.

“The best weapon is your mind,” Mara
explained.

Gandarel looked indignant, “Oh come
on!  You know that is not fair.  We were
discussing battle; you can’t hit someone with your mind!”

“Perhaps not figuratively, but given the
choice of facing three imbeciles with swords or one genius with his
bare hands, I know what I would choose,” Mara countered.

“But I’m talking about three guys with swords
attacking you, certainly then you would need a weapon!”

“Agreed, I always go armed with my mind.”

“
Fat lot
of
good that would do you if you had to parry a sword thrust,”
Gandarel said with a grin.

“Why do you say that?  There are
objects aplenty within this room for an agile mind to fight with,
and none of them are swords, daggers, clubs or staffs,” Mara
stated.

“Like what?” Gandarel said, calling her
bluff.

“This loaf of bread, my chair, this candle,
any of these mugs, the floor...” Mara pointed as she went through
her list.

Gandarel interrupted, “That loaf of bread is
a weapon?” He pointed at the offending object on the table between
them.  The bread was a forearm in length with a golden
colored hard crust and thick doughy interior.

“Your mind is the weapon; it can use anything
as a tool.” 

At that
moment,
one of the four rough looking bodyguards seated
at the table next to Mara stood up to go to the bar. He was holding
a mug of ale.   In standing his sword caught under
the bench, and that caused him to lurch toward Mara and he sloshed
some of his ale onto Mara’s shoulder.

“Speaking of imbeciles with swords!” Mara
snapped in irritation, wiping at the stain on her dress.

“Who you callin’ an
imbisilly
?” the man growled, leaning his rather large
bulk over Mara in a threatening way.

Gandarel’s Guardsmen started forward out of
the shadows, but Gandarel motioned them back with a
gesture.  “So, Sen Mara, you are telling me you could
take this man with your mind and the objects you
described?  Or would you prefer my Guardsmen’s
swords
to back you up?”

Aerin noticed Tocor putting his mug down
carefully in the center of the table.

Mara looked up at the large brute above her
and sighed as she said, “I would like to apologize...”

“’Bout time, old woman, I would have hated to
have had ta toss ya out onto the street,” the big
brute
growled.

“...for the bruises and contusions you are
about to receive, but consider that your short pain will be an
invaluable example to illustrate an important lesson for this
boy.”

His answer was short, to the point and not
very witty, “Huh?”

The old woman rose slowly to her feet and
faced the man.  “You are a slob, you smell, and I would
tell you that you had the manners of a
swine
if that wasn’t insulting the poor creatures.”

The man looked to his friends in disbelief,
“Did this prune faced old wench just call me a pig?”

One of the seated men answered him, “Yeah,
Taunk
, I think she did.”

“I’ll teach ya, bitch!” he growled and tried
to backhand her across the mouth with a meaty paw.

Mara simply stepped back out of range,
letting the hand pass by a finger’s width from her nose.

Aerin started to stand, but Tocor fixed him
with a sharp gaze and said, “Sit down, Aerin.”

“I see that you have no qualms about striking
a woman,” Mara noted, “And unfortunately for you, I have no qualms
about striking brutes.”  Without looking down, Mara
grabbed a mug off the table by its thick handle, and with a
sweeping
gesture,
she raised it in
the air.  In a loud voice that carried to the entire
tavern, she said, “I propose a toast!  Here is to
justice...” 

The brute regained his balance from his
missed swing just in time to gawk at the mug Mara held in the
air.  At which point Mara doused the ale in his
face.  When he flinched she backhanded the heavy clay mug
across the side of his head, shattering the mug. 

The large man staggered from the sudden
impact, shaking his head like a wounded
dog
as if that would make the sharp pain go away.

Mara reached back with both hands for her
chair as if to sit, but set the front right leg on the man’s foot,
before plopping down with all her weight.  As she sat
down she reached for the loaf of bread on the table and then tore
off the end.

As her weight pressed down through the chair
leg and onto his foot the man howled in pain, doubling over toward
Mara. He grabbed the table for support as he tried to pull his foot
out from under the offending chair leg.

Mara quickly squeezed the piece of bread in
her fist, and with a short hard thrust, stuffed the thick dough in
his open mouth.

Gagging on the bread, the man managed to pull
his foot out from under the chair, just as Mara leaned the burning
candle over and spilled some hot wax on the back of his hand, where
he gripped the table edge.

The man sucked in a breath of pure dough, as
he tried to inhale to scream, and started choking for
air.  He released the table and grabbed at his throat,
his face starting to turn a nice shade of blue.

Mara stood up and walked slowly around the
choking man. She arrived behind him just as his legs started to go
rubbery from the lack of oxygen.  She grabbed him around
the waist, placing her hands in his stomach area, and then pulled
up and backward sharply.  The bread flew out of his mouth
with explosive force, striking the astounded Gandarel in the
face.  The unfortunate
Taunk
doubled over onto the table top, gasping in a
wheezing gulp of
much-needed
air.

Mara released him, stepped to his side and
grasped the back of his head by his unruly hair.  With a
short economic yank and thrust, she bounced his head off the
hardwood
table and let him fall to
the ground.  Before his body had completely come to rest,
she turned with a
confident
look
and faced the unconscious man’s three friends.  She took
a step toward them and all three flinched, starting up from their
chairs to get away from the old woman who had just incapacitated
their large companion.

“If you stand up I’ll have to do something,”
she said simply.  “If you want it bandied about that it
took all three of you big brave men to fight one old woman... well,
then by all means get up.”

All three of the burly men froze half out of
their chairs.

Mara spoke in a friendly tone, “I have no
quarrel with any of
you
unless you
wish to be as rude as your friend?”

Glancing at each other the three men slowly
sat back down.

“He had it
comin’,
if ya asks me,” one of them said.  The
other two
nodded
and finally
relaxed when Mara gave them a small smile and a nod, then turned
back to her table.

Mara pulled her chair back into position and
sat down gracefully.

Gandarel and the other boys were all in
shock.  
Finally,
Gandarel said, “Shouldn’t we get out of here before he wakes
up?”

“And spoil our celebration?  I
should say not.  Besides, he won't be feeling much like
fighting for awhile,” Mara said after glancing over the edge of the
table to check on the brute, he was out cold on the floor.

“I guess she showed you,” Lor noted to
Gandarel with a grin.

Aerin finally got his mouth working, “How did
you do that?”

Mara spoke calmly, “I thought ahead of him,
that’s all, it wasn’t magic. I just used my head to think, while he
used his to pound wood.  Your mind is the weapon,
Gandarel, don’t forget it.”

Gandarel swallowed and then nodded his
acceptance of the lesson.

Aerin considered Mara quietly during the rest
of the meal.  She was far
lither
and stronger than he would ever have suspected
from an old woman, and though he didn't know her age for sure, he
started thinking he had guessed wrong to begin with.  She
had to be younger than he had thought the day he had first met her
when his parents were killed.  Then he had thought her in
her seventies, but now he revised his estimate to somewhere in her
sixties.  He wondered how a woman came to know so much
about fighting; it puzzled him.

The man was still out on the floor
sometime
later when Mara paid the
bill and they left.

Chapter Six

"Not all his lessons will involve weapons,
and not all his classrooms involve the teacher."

- From the Prophecies of Gold

Ten days later, Aerin was just finishing his
warm-ups before starting weapon practice, when he noticed a very
sleepy Lor arriving late.

“Hard night?” he asked playfully.

Lor scowled, and with uncharacteristic
irritation replied, “What I do at night is none of your
business.”

Aerin was taken aback by his friend’s tone.
“
Hey,
you don’t have to bite my
head off!  I was only mentioning that you looked tired. I
didn’t mean anything by...”

“Then just drop it, like I said, it is my
business.”

Aerin looked over at Dono, who shrugged to
show his lack of understanding as well.

Puzzled, Aerin continued his warm-ups.

Tocor soon had them working on drills with
practice swords, and matched up Lor and Gandarel for
a bout
in the sand square.

Lor’s skill with the sword had improved over
the months, and though technically Gandarel was better, the two of
them were a close match.  Today, however, Lor seemed to
have lost a step.   The third time that Gandarel
scored a full hit on Lor, this one a bruising blow to the upper
arm, Tocor stepped in and stopped the bout.