Second Kiss (6 page)

“I don't think I could stand it.”

“I think you can and you will and you must.” Veneetha Azucena did her best to hide her irritation, but she stared at him firmly. “That's without reminding you that you have made a vow to us and are bonded to us. I could, therefore, put you in chains and make you do it, but I would not have it that way. So instead I'll say that I promise you your long days of scribing will not go unrewarded. Someday if you come to me and you require some favour, if it is possibly within my power I will grant it.”

“But if there are long days of scribing, when will I even receive instruction in the sword?”

Here she paused and looked at Sarabin questioningly. The old man nodded very slightly.

“The problem is this, Xemion,” he said. “We don't know how it will fare with Ettinender. We do know that he will be doing no further scribing in the near future and that Yarra cannot possibly keep up with the dictation all by himself. And I'm sure you would not have us every day lose more and more of our literature.”

“But she couldn't be dictating all day long, surely? Even if I just attended the instructions when she was resting—”

“Unfortunately, there is a problem with that approach,” Sarabin said sorrowfully. “You see, there are those among the instructors here who might have no real objection to relics of the spellwork. But if any of them is likely to object to an old woman who recites from a memory enabled by the spell waters, or a dog who is enabled by some kind of spell to speak aloud, that person would be our most important instructor, Tiri Lighthammer.”

“No one despises the spellcraft more than Lighthammer,” Veneetha Azucena interjected.

“And rightly so,” Sarabin continued. “But, when it comes to a chance of recovering so much of our lost literature—”

“We can't be such purists as he,” Veneetha Azucena finished. “We've made a compromise. We've let the old woman keep the dog, without which she says she might die of loneliness. And we can't take the chance that Lighthammer would intervene and stop it. And we certainly can't afford to lose him. So he simply cannot know about this. So, I'm afraid we cannot have you going in and out of his instructions because the old man is canny and he will know something is up.”

“No!” Xemion's heart was beating terribly fast.

“We will have to say that you have an illness. That you are under quarantine,” Veneetha Azucena said, eying him with great sympathy but firmness.

“No!”

“I'm afraid so,” said Sarabin.

“I won't do it.”

“You will,” Azucena said firmly.

“It is wrong that it happened this way. No one would have chosen for us to be parted in this manner.”

“It wouldn't be an ordeal if you chose it,” Sarabin said, punctuating his remark with a little click of his hooks.

“If you really believe that she is your warrior beloved,” Veneetha Azucena said, lifting a warm hand to Xemion's shoulder, “my advice to you is that you must love your ordeal as you bear it because ultimately it is part of what brings you back to her. You cannot get to her, except by going through this pain. So love it for that.”

⚔

Lirodello lead Xemion through the darkening streets of Ulde to his new quarters. Xemion's disappointment and anger had him on the urge of hostility, but Lirodello was intent on comforting him.

“I want you to know, brother, that you are not alone in this. I only met my Vortasa a day ago. Our eyes only met briefly but in that instant she and I were bound together for all of time. Vortasa. Vortasa.” He did a little spin on one foot. “Did you not see her? There were three sisters, huge like battle Thralls. With shoulders like oxen and arms like oak branches, but lovely; lovely, my friend, as life itself.”

Along with everything else, Xemion was now feeling slightly embarrassed. “And now just as quickly she is gone and like you I know not when I will see her next,” Lirodello continued, choking back a sob. “Have you not felt it, too, my brother?” Lirodello beseeched him, touching his arm gently. “Have you not felt it, that when the girl goes, she pulls the very heart thread with her, unravelling it over great distance till one's heart is thin, stretched empty but still utterly and forever attached?”

Xemion nodded, turning slightly to remove Lirodello's hand from his arm. Lirodello smiled up one side of his face. “We are brothers in this, my brother. Brothers in longing. Brothers in separation.” It was getting darker. Seabirds were shrieking overhead and the salt breeze was drifting in steadily through the circuitous streets. Xemion sighed with despair as they approached his new residence. Most of those who were to remain in Ulde had been housed in the series of barracks near the stadium where Xemion had spent his first night. This new residence was on the third floor of an old marble tenement four streets over. “I want you to know that I already feel a strong bond with you,” Lirodello said, “and though you may not have your beloved, you do at least have my friendship during this time.” And with that he tipped his flat hat and swept it down in a bow. Standing back up, he stretched his hand out. Xemion reluctantly took the thin grey appendage and shook it, feeling a surprising strength there.

Quill and Blade, Blade and Quill

I
t
was true: Xemion had an ordeal to go through. But not all of it would be faced alone. The whole colony had very difficult times ahead. But no one knew that yet. Xemion showed up obediently the next morning at the underdome, and with Yarra holding the cone up to the old woman's mouth, he scribed for twelve hours straight. When he emerged, it was nighttime already. He could hear from the next neighbourhood the sounds of carousing kitchen Thralls, celebrating the first day of their service. They sounded very jolly, and Xemion almost wished he could join them, but he was officially in quarantine, an almost secret resident of Ulde, and he had no choice but to make his way back to his solitary quarters alone. Later, Sarabin came by with his supper and thanked him and complimented him on the strength of his commitment to his vow. But Xemion knew the vow had nothing to do with it. He would break it in an instant if he knew where to look, how to find her.

The next day moved even more agonizingly slowly. And the next slower still. He felt like going down into the underdome and bellowing and cursing and kicking the papers and pens about. Once, while Musea napped, he actually did throw his quill pen. But it was a futile gesture. Being but a feather, it hardly flew any distance before twirling down to the floor. Suddenly there was a dark flash that caused Xemion to draw back instinctively. In an instant the dog, Bargest, had crossed the floor, scooped up the quill in his massive mouth, and brought it humbly to Xemion, setting it down at his feet and looking up at him expectantly, following every move of his hand.

Recovering from his surprise, Xemion picked up the feather, said a sullen “good boy,” and gave the dog a biscuit he had brought with him for breakfast. The dog gobbled it down with one quick tilt of his head and waited at Xemion's feet.

Now that he could see him properly, Xemion realized the dog was much bigger than he had thought. The face was a long, wolfish triangle and the lips, when lifted in supplication, revealed long, full incisors. His jaws were massive and his paws huge — easily as big as Xemion's hands. When it became clear to the dog that no more biscuits would be offered, he slid through the shadows back to Musea's feet. Soon after that, Musea awoke and Xemion and Yarra went wearily back to work.

There was never any rest from his thoughts of Saheli and where she might be and whom she might be with. And when such thoughts inevitably brought him back to Tharfen and Montither, and particularly what Montither had done to him, he seethed with rage and a growing hatred that filled his head with homicidal visions. Still, Xemion laboured away, day after day, until his wrists were sore with the writing and his neck ached and his back hurt. He did his best to take Veneetha's advice and try to love this ordeal, but he couldn't help but despise it, and that only made it worse.

Musea would often have recited all night long had it not been for Bargest. The dog seemed to supervise the old Thrall. For when her voice grew so faint she could barely be heard at all, and yet she still continued trying to tell her tale, the dog would lick her toes and make her giggle, or start to beg for water or meat and so distract her long enough for her to get off the wheel of narration and realize she needed to rest.

“My lady, I beseech, cease before my heart bursts. I beg you.” As always, the dog adopted the most miserable posture possible when he begged. He flattened his long pointed chin and cask-sized chest to the floor, kneeling down with his tail tucked between his back legs and whining pitifully in a high puppy voice that was disgraceful to hear. “Please, I beg you.” Sometimes when Musea fell into a brief slumber the beast would transfer his fascination to Xemion, staring at him with infinite longing in his eyes, and no matter how Xemion glared back, he would not stop.

During the second week, Musea began to recite from the works of the great Elphaerean poet Huzzuh. Many of these poems left Xemion unmoved. They were complex, confusing, and far too full of rhymes. But when she got to his crowning achievement, the book wherein he made his breakthrough into the liberty and glory of free verse, there were piercing poems that so expressed the way Xemion felt that he almost wept. And when he lay sleeplessly in his bed that night he found that he remembered them perfectly. Indeed, having them play over and over in his head gave him some of the only moments of relief that he would experience, not only during this ordeal but in the many ordeals ahead.

The next week Musea moved on to a famous book about military strategy and then to an advanced manual on swordsmanship. Xemion took heart at this fortunate turn of events and began to practice secretly with his painted sword each night, glad once again that he had not discarded it as Vallaine had advised. Because he was living on the third floor of a house in an unpopulated neighbourhood of Ulde, and because he had no access to any outdoor space, he was forced to practise out on the remains of an extended balcony that jutted out dangerously from the side of the building. The floor was slanted and cracked and the railings had fallen off long ago, but it was the only place with enough room to perform some of the extended movements such as the star's thrust. Because he only ever had time to practise after dark, and because the silver paint he had used on the sword was made from the bodies of luminous sea urchins, the sword lit up, glowing brightly in the night. Unbeknownst to Xemion, the motions of his sword work — the diagonals, the circles, ellipses, waves, and points of it — shone like luminous green phantasms of an unknown alphabet to the excited eyes of the many runaway Thrall children who lived secretly nearby. They soon grew so fascinated by the light that they began to track him through the street as he walked to and from the underdome, and sometimes, especially when he returned home after dark, he would hear the little ones whispering, “Look! Look, the shining sword,” as they scurried from shadow to shadow, following him along.

After a few nights of this, when it seemed their number might well be increasing, he decided to move his sword practice elsewhere. Hiding the painted sword under his cloak, Xemion made his way to Uldestack, the second of the two peninsulas that curved inward, enclosing Phaer Bay. This part of Ulde was usually dark and uninhabited at night. Uldestack, the towering volcano-shaped chimney at the end, was the very landmark that had helped Xemion and Saheli find their way into the city when they were lost. It had been built by a long-ago race of Nains when the city of Ulde had been one of the major centres for metallurgy in the known world. All around the wide diameter of the chimney's base were ventilation holes through which the sea winds roared in high season, capable of stoking so many kiln fires at once that the glow from them could be seen by ships miles out at sea.

Tonight, though, it was almost invisible in the dark and the fog. Xemion stopped in the pitch-blackness. He could hear the waves crashing on the cliffs below, and the call of a tern. Finally, he reached into his cloak and drew forth the practice sword. He had only executed the first few glowing sequences of his new regimen, however, when he heard a terrible screeching sound coming from the direction of the stack. There was a hideous supernatural quality to the sound, as though some demonic creature were crying up from underground in holy torment. Sheathing the sword, he ran closer. The fog was still dense but he could see, high above him, a barely flickering glow at the top of the stack. Then a faint echo of someone chanting reached his ears. He moved closer to distinguish the words:

Hard, hard

As Earth is hard.

Hard as luck,

Seared and charred.

Hard in death

And hard in birth.

Out of my mettle make this metal

Hard, hard.

The voice was unmistakably that of Glittervein, the Nain. And that flickering glow at the top of the stack was no doubt the kiln fire far below. And that hideous screeching, which now arose anew, was clearly the sound of Glittervein's machinery inside the smithy making swords for tomorrow. Still, the combination of the screeching and the chanting was deeply unnerving.

Hard, hard

As my life is hard.

Hard as rock

As my heart is hard.

Hard as my bones

Make this shard.

Of my mettle make this metal

Hard, so hard.

Finally, the sounds ended and there came a loud hiss as though a screaming jet of steam had burst from a vent in the Earth. That was Glittervein quenching the blade. Lirodello had told Xemion the stories about Glittervein — that he had learned to harness the crackling underearth fire to heat his forge. But the smithy must be below ground level because all was dark in the workshop. Xemion drew close to a window and peered in. He had to duck down quickly, for just then the sound of footsteps came up a stairway from underground, a door opened, ushering a rush of light inward, and Glittervein and the bulky, blind Thralleen stepped into the workshop.

“Well, wasn't that poetic?” he heard Glittervein say sarcastically in a slightly slurred voice. Xemion peered in as the Nain closed the great stone door at the top of the stairs. He inserted a big black key into the lock and turned it. Then, after scanning the shop for any observers, he pulled a brick from the side of his kiln, placed the key in a space inside it, and slid the brick back into place. “Very satisfying,” he slurred. He took a wineskin, which he wore on a long string about his neck, and began to quaff deeply. After a few good gulps, Glittervein tapped the Thrall on her left shoulder to signal that her work was done. At first she didn't react, so he stood up on his chair and shoved her quite hard. “Go away!” he bellowed, teetering slightly on his perch. She nodded and groped her way toward a chamber on the other side of the smithy. Mumbling to himself bitterly, Glittervein made his way over to a small table only a few feet away from the glass through which Xemion covertly observed him.

Glittervein, like all Nains, was short and broad­shouldered, but he had particular thick arms and the sinews in them rippled with his every movement. One side of his long auburn hair flowed down over the side of his face while the other side was flung back over his shoulder, where it coiled down his back almost to his waist.

He removed a small pot of ink, a sheet of paper, and a quill pen from a drawer and set them on the table in front of him. For a second Xemion thought the Nain must be able to read, but when he did finally place the quill tip to the paper it was obvious that he was drawing something on it. Xemion strained to get a better look.

Just then Glittervein lifted his head and looked right at Xemion. Xemion felt the gaze lock into him and grab hold of him and then it seemed to go right
through
him. Frozen with fear, Xemion realized that Glittervein couldn't see him and was actually staring at his own reflection in the window glass. Xemion remained motionless, staring right into the unknowing right eye of the Nain. The right side of Glittervein's face had very delicate features, but as Xemion watched, the Nain, who was deep in thought, flung back his hair and turned the other side of his face toward the glass. Xemion had already heard from Lirodello that the Nain's face had been severely burnt in a kiln fire accident, but he was unprepared for how terribly damaged it was. It was as though someone had taken a wax image of a face, scorched it, and then smeared it over to one side. It was a scarry purple colour, its surface evenly pitted like rapidly boiling porridge.

Glittervein shook his head at his reflection and then proceeded to comb the long auburn hair back over his disfigurement, all the while gazing not only into his own eyes but also those of his silent observer.

Finally he returned to his picture. Xemion squinted to better see what the Nain was drawing. It appeared to be a crude representation of crossed swords. When Glittervein finished, he folded the note into a tiny square. After staggering to the back of the shop, he returned with a pigeon. Xemion watched as the Nain tied the note to the pigeon's leg, opened a south-facing window, and released it into the night. He stood, watching it as it flew out over the sea. Having done this, a smile of what looked to be satisfaction crossed his face. He sat down, took another long quaff from his wineskin, and rubbed his hands together so rapidly he might have been trying to start a little fire in his palms.

Just then Xemion heard a rustling sound behind him. Turning quickly, he saw through the thinning fog that he was surrounded by a ring of wide-open eyes, all low to the ground and at various heights, and all staring at him most intently. He didn't have time to think. He reached into his cloak and drew out the practice sword and held it high. It was at its full luminosity now; its glow was so strong it illuminated his hand, his arm, and the grimacing war mask of his face. Emitting his fiercest cry, Xemion ran between two of the sets of eyes, slashing the greenish shine of the blade to and fro. Once he was past, he dashed on as fast as his legs would carry him down the peninsula. As he ran, he could clearly hear the enchanted cry that rose up and followed him: “He is master, he is Lord. Hail, hail the shining sword.”