Steel And Flame (Book 1) (48 page)

“You’re a stone idiot, I’ll have you know,” Dietrik
barked harshly by way of an opening comment.  “You need to stay on your guard
from now on, because next time I’ll leave you to rot!”

“What…” Marik croaked, but stuck on the first word. 
The water had only soothed his throat.  It still remained splintered and harsh.

“Well, now that I can stop mothering you,
I
can
go and enjoy my rest holiday!  It’s Kerwin’s turn anyway, so I’m going.”

Dietrik left the room and slammed the door behind
himself.  Thoroughly bewildered, Marik glanced at Kerwin.

“Don’t you pay him any mind,” Kerwin responded, his
tone far gentler than Dietrik’s.  “He’s been crazy with worry all the way
back.  Barely left your side on the road.  Only goes to prove the loners might
have a point after all.”

“What…what...happened?”  Speaking became slightly
easier with practice.  He felt the muscles in his neck grating with every
syllable.

“That bastard of a hedge-wizard popped out when you
weren’t looking.  He caught you with a nasty piece of work he had tucked up his
sleeve.”

“Wiz…ard?”

“Can’t remember, huh?  I’m not surprised.  I wouldn’t
want to myself.”

Kerwin asked him questions requiring only simple
answers, working back to the point where Marik’s memories had bid him
farewell.  After finding the place, he imparted the history for the lost time. 
Shadows surfaced in Marik’s mind while he spoke.  Recollections slowly slunk
back in.  At the end, Marik could match most of Kerwin’s descriptions with
images from his memory.  Also, while Kerwin talked, Marik gradually came to
realize he dreamed no longer.

“I got…hit then?”

“Yup,” Kerwin said simply.  “Couple others got it
too.”

“They…here?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.”

“Dietrik about went nuts.  We found you still
breathing, but Floroes said he couldn’t do anything.  Fraser sent the men out
to all the villages we’d been through and they came back with a pair of
priests.  Good thing for you they worshipped the right gods since it took
everything they both had to drag you back.  We took two of the horses the
bandits were using and ‘borrowed’ a wagon from a village to haul you all the
way back here.”

“Kings…home?”

“The one and only.”

“How long…asleep?”

“A long damn time, Marik.  It’s been almost an
eightday already since we got back.  Winter’s going to start soon.”

Utter shock.  How long had he been out?  He could not
comprehend.  Marik made an attempt at humor to shake it off.

“So, did anyone…pick today…in the pool?”

“I didn’t start one,” Kerwin told him, solemnity thick
in his voice.  “We were too worried you wouldn’t wake up at all.”

Which told Marik a great deal about how bad his
condition had been.  He shuddered slightly, feeling it in every ache across his
body.

“That’s what…I get for…tangling…with a mage.  That’s
why…I can’t stand them.”

Kerwin glanced aside, looking at the wall instead of
at Marik and biting his tongue.  Marik was too busy concentrating on his words
to notice the sudden uneasiness in Kerwin’s expression.

“Tell me…about the...ride back.”

“Not much to tell.  We really had to push to get you
back here, you know.  Practically dawn to dusk in the saddle.  None of us had
time to find a good tavern or any willing ladies either, and you can bet you’ll
be hearing about that a lot from the fellows.”

“What’s the odds?”

“I don’t know.  I’ll have to think that one out.  How
many times will you hear the same complaints?  Maybe it’s got possibilities.”

“You never…change.  I was dreaming…about…the roaches.”

“What, that?  I didn’t start them at it.  I just put
down odds on it.”

“That’s what…I meant.”  He paused in thought for a
moment and to gather his strength.  “I hope…Dietrik’s not…too mad.”

“About what?’

“Having to…look after me.”

“Don’t you believe him for a moment.  Like I said, he
practically never left your side during the whole trip.  You remember his filly
in Drytell?”

“What?”

“His little punch bunny he snuck off with in Drytell. 
The place with all the foxglove plants.”

“Oh.  That woman…from next door…the chandler?”

“That’s the one.  She came around when she saw us
pulling into the inn’s stables again, looking for another round.  He blew her
off without a by-your-leave.  It was funny as all hells, her looking like she
got kicked in the head by a mule.”

“I thought he…liked her.”

“Oh, he did.  You can count on that much.  Remember I
was ready to knock him out of his saddle after all those stories of his over
and over.  He was too concerned with your sorry hide.”

The journeyman chirurgeon returned with several drafts
Marik needed to choke down.  “This is going to put you back to sleep for
awhile,” he explained.

Marik fought to say he did not want to sleep, that he
would be having dangerous dreams.  The young man ignored the feeble protests.

Kerwin decided to leave, having been reassured Marik
would mend.  “Besides, it’s the middle of the night.  I think I’ll go sleep on
my own cot.”

The sight of him leaving the room blurred when Marik’s
eyes fell closed against all his effort to stop them.

*        *        *        *        *

Over the next eightday, he improved.  Though only able
to drink water and eat fall apples pounded into mush, he still counted himself
lucky.  Marik suffered a steady stream of insults from his friends, each of
whom felt the urge to stop by and thank him for their miserable trip home.  He
took it well, knowing none truly meant it.

Harlan, Chatham and Maddock stopped by one afternoon. 
Chatham’s antics in tormenting the long-suffering Harlan drew the first laugh
from Marik since awakening.

The only surprising visitor came one afternoon while
Marik sat up in his bed, flexing his various muscles for Delmer, the journeyman
chirurgeon assigned to him.  He could only bend his elbows and knees halfway.  Delmer
assured him normal flexibility would return with time and exercise.  A noise in
the doorway drew their attention to the man standing within it.

Of average build, though very muscular, his fine-weave
tunic and his thick fighter’s breeches had seen much service.  They were well
cared for.  His breeches were supported by a leather belt, the legs tucked into
his boot tops.  An elaborately carved pattern decorated the belt’s length. 
Neither old nor young, he could have been anywhere from thirty to forty-five.

He nodded to Delmer while he stole the one chair in
the room.  After turning it so its rear faced them, he straddled the seat and
crossed his arms atop the chair back.  The stranger watched without saying a
word.

Delmer hurried to finish the examination, then took a
damp towel and carefully wrapped it around Marik’s head so he looked like a
desert rider from the Kello-beii.  Hair regrowing atop his head worked its way
through the abused flesh, and while the skin had toughened as it healed, the
itching drove him crazy.  He would have kept his head shaven if he could do so
without breaking open the blisters.  The towel’s damp coolness helped to
alleviate the itching.  Once he finished this last chore, Delmer left the two
men alone.

“How are you feeling?” asked the man.

“I’ve been better,” Marik responded cautiously.

“I can imagine.  I’ve been asking around about you.  I
had Janus pull your personnel file.”

What?
 
“Sir?” asked Marik, deducing this man must be a senior officer if he could
order cranky old Janus to do anything.

“I’m Torrance, by the way,” said the commander of the
Crimson Kings, and offered his hand.  “I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”

“Yes, I have.  Uh, sir.”

Torrance shook his head as he carefully shook Marik’s
hand.  “Don’t bother with that.  It’s only useful in front of the nobles or the
army officers.”

“All right.  I appreciate your stopping by to see me,
but why bother?”

“Has anyone told you why you survived?”

“No,” said Marik.  “I assumed…I don’t know.  I was
lucky.”

“Good, I told everyone not to.  Yes, you were lucky,
but not the way you think.  I sent Tollaf over to check you while you were
sleeping the first few days.”

“Tollaf?”

“The head of my mage forces.  Chief Mage Tollaf, to
the rest of you.”

Mages. 
Marik
felt the old revulsion crawling to the surface.  Oddly enough, this time the
usual shudder that customarily ran through his spine failed to accompany it. 
He had too many pressing concerns at the moment to wonder why.  “You sent a
mage to ‘check me out’?  For what?  And why?  I mean, yeah I survived a spell
and all that, but what does that have to do with anything?”

Torrance cocked his head.  “I will ask you in turn. 
Why did you survive a spell attack that killed five other men by reducing half
their body mass to ash in an instant?”

“Every tragedy has its survivors.”

“Every natural tragedy, yes.  I think you’ll agree
this was quite unnatural.”

Marik kept silent.

“Your situation is not so uncommon, actually.  For
every mage practicing his art, there are at least three or four others with the
same gifts of magic, though theirs is latent.  Most go through their entire
lives with no cause to suspect it’s there, sleeping within them.  If they do
recognize it, many can’t use it.  Their talent is either too small to be
wakened and used, or it has shriveled with disuse, like a fruit too long on the
tree.”

“I don’t have any magical talent,” Marik replied.  A
mounting horror slowly built with every word the commander spoke.

“Not that you’ve ever recognized you mean.  Like so
many others, you’ve never had a need of it, so it sits in the back of your
mind, growing weak like any of your other muscles from lack of use.  But part
of you knew it for what it was.  That’s one reason why you’ve gone out of your
way to avoid magic whenever you could.”

“What?”

“I told you, I’ve been asking around about you. 
Aversions to magic are rather common in those who have the potential within
them, but aren’t ready to accept it.”

“I still don’t believe I have any sort of ‘talent’
like that!”

“That’s why I had Tollaf examine you while you were
still out like a snuffed candle.  He tells me you do indeed have it within you,
that it’s been latent all your life, and only uncoiled when it did to save you
from certain death at the hands of magic, the one thing it could defend you
against when your life was in question.  It shielded you from most of the
destructive force and prevented the worst of the damage.  Not that it was able
to do more than save you by a fly’s whisker.”

“No.  There’s no way!”  Torrance, the commander of the
entire band, had stopped by to play a twisted joke on a crippled invalid!  Yet
even in his bleak despair, he could not quite make himself believe that.  Then
an escape presented itself.  “But if it’s true, it’s latent, right?  It’ll
sleep itself away if I leave it alone!”  Marik felt he might be able to grasp
this horrible reality, now that he had a plan to deal with it.

But Torrance shook his head.  “It
was
latent. 
As I said, cases like yours aren’t entirely uncommon.  With some, the gift
destroys itself when it’s called upon so suddenly and desperately.  Tollaf
tells me it is like bringing a candle into a mine full of coal gas.  The flame
ignites the gas, which blows out all the air in the mine.  The gift is
destroyed in much the same manner as the mine collapsing.

“With others, as with you, it becomes drawn out, or
awakened if you like that description better.  Imagine if the mine survived the
blowout of flaming gas.  The air is clear and it is safe to enter.  In your
case, that means your talent has escaped intact and is no longer obstructed. 
But you can’t count on your talent saving your life again as it first did.  It
is active, and you can’t ignore it anymore.”

Marik shouted, “I’ve ignored it all my life, haven’t
I?”

“If you were very, very careful, you might be able to
go through the rest of your life without training in its handling.  Except the
odds of accidents are terribly high.”

“Why?” demanded Marik.  “Those hedge-wizards or
whatever spend their whole lives trying to use magic!  They’re lucky if they
can light a candle!”

“That is true, up to a point.  There are other
considerations.”  Torrance held up a finger.  “One, their gifts tend to be
minor and lighting a candle is all they could do in most cases anyway.  Two,
they are not ignoring their gifts, they’re trying like the hells to use them. 
Their constant effort gives them the skill and control to wield their talent
without mishap for the most part.  If you try to suppress it, it will back up
like a dammed river until it overflows and makes a mess of your life and
everyone’s around you.  Or, to return to our previous image, the mine may be
cleared of foul air, but the explosion weakened the structure.  The walls need
to be shored up, new braces put in to keep a collapse from killing everyone in
the vicinity.”