Between Worlds: the Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories (11 page)

Ranior paused, his face set, harshly etched in the
candlelight. “I don’t know, Cylides. Menander hasn’t had a good look at him
yet.”

Ranior’s bootsteps sounded loud on the tiles as he
went back toward the front entrance. Irissa was looking at Ilias in confusion. Her
brown hair was held back in frazzled braids and she wore copper rings in her
ears. With a bewildered expression, she asked, “Did the wizard try to steal
you?”

“No.” Ilias stared at her, baffled. He looked at the
two men, who were staring watchfully out the door. Past them, Ilias could see
the other room was lit with more bowl-shaped oil lamps, and had dining couches
and a low table. A wide doorway, banded by a couple of painted columns, opened
out onto the atrium. The one called Cylides glanced at him, and the lamplight
caught the gleam of silver among the scarring on his cheek. Ilias looked at
Irissa again. “There... There can’t be a wizard here.” There were people here,
and lights, and wizards were only in dark places, the deep forest, the hills. But
he remembered the story about the isolated village and felt a chill settle in
his stomach. But she had to be lying, the way Castor lied.

“There is one here. It’s trying to kill my brother.” Irissa
took one of his feet, wincing in sympathy. Ilias was distracted by how awful
they looked in the lamplight, all dirt and blood. “You’ve been walking barefoot
on the road? How far?”

“Ow,” Ilias told her so she would be careful, though
she hadn’t hurt him yet. He was wary of older girls on principle, knowing that
some could be friends like Amari, some indifferent, and others outright
enemies. “I don’t know, I’m lost. There’s a real wizard, not a made-up one?”

“Very real.” Irissa pushed to her feet, biting her lip
as she looked around the room. “I don’t have any water or bandages, and we’re
not supposed to leave the room. Does it hurt very badly?”

“No,” he told her, still not sure she was telling the
truth about the wizard. For all the times he and Castor had seen curselings in
shadows, part of him had known it was just pretend. But his older sisters and
cousins usually hadn’t bothered to lie to him, except when Niale told him his
mother hated him.

“We can send for water when Treian comes back,” the
man with one arm told her, still keeping his eyes on the torchlit atrium.

There was a red-glazed warming jar on the hearth, with
a set of matching cups. Irissa dipped a cupful out of the jar and brought it to
Ilias. At the smell of warm wine mixed with honey and water, Ilias forgot
everything else while he gulped it down. He was thirsty and this was a treat he
usually only got when he was sick. It soothed his throat and warmed his stomach
and for a moment all he wanted to do was lie down on the cushions and sleep. Irissa
brought him another cup before he could ask. She told him, “I’m Irissa, and
that’s Cylides and Macritus. They’re from Andrien village. What’s your name? Do
we know your family?”

“Ilias. I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He didn’t
think that was a lie. He had never been taken to visit this house as far as he
could remember, and he had never seen his father talk to Ranior in the market. He
drained the second cup and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, saying hurriedly, “How
can there be a wizard here? Is it really after your brother?” He wasn’t sure
why he was reluctant to give her his family name, he just knew he wanted to
delay the moment as long as possible. It would mean things would change, and
right now this room felt safe, wizard or not. He knew there were two worlds
now, one where people took care of you and one where they didn’t. Having gotten
back into the first one, he meant to stay in it as long as possible.

Irissa’s brow furrowed as she looked at the couch on
the other side of the room. “Giliead is the next Chosen Vessel. Didn’t you know
that?”

Ilias looked blankly at the other couch and realized
the lumpy blankets piled there were actually covering another boy. He could see
tufts of brown hair sticking up past the reds and golds of the dyed wool. “I
knew that,” he said automatically. Maybe he hadn’t believed it until just now.

At the doorway, Macritus, the man with the missing
arm, shifted impatiently. “What’s he doing?” he said, sounding as if he was
mostly talking to himself. “Treian?” he called softly.

A faint sound pulled Ilias’ attention back to the
other couch. Giliead was awake and sitting up, regarding him with grave blue
eyes. He was just a boy, a little younger than Ilias, with wavy brown hair
coming out of his braids and a mark on his cheek from a fold in the pillow. “Treian’s
not there,” Giliead said, blinking sleepily at Irissa.

“He’s supposed to be.” Irissa glanced back at him
impatiently, but Ilias thought she was more worried than annoyed. “Macritus,
could you--”

“Don’t.” Giliead’s voice was suddenly urgent. He
shifted, sitting up on his knees, pushing the blanket down. “He’s out there, ‘Rissa.”

Macritus was still looking out into the other room and
the atrium, frowning, but Cylides turned to look at Giliead, asking, “What do
you see, Gil?”

Between one heartbeat and the next, the doorway filled
with a solid darkness, the cold breath of death. Ilias yelped, scrambling back
and tumbling off the couch, staring in frightened incomprehension. Irissa fell
over the couch as the darkness rolled over Cylides and Macritus, even as the
two men shouted in alarm and stumbled backward.

The darkness struck Ilias and knocked him backward,
and the room went black. He lay on the tile floor, blind, cold and numb, so
shocked he couldn’t even feel terror. It was like standing in the surf on the
beach and being struck by a sudden powerful wave; the darkness took his breath
just the way the foamy water would have. After another moment it passed and he
could see the blue-painted ceiling again, the firelight reflecting off it as if
nothing had happened.

Dizzy and sick, Ilias rolled over and saw a strange
man standing in the room. He was young, dark hair gathered in a queue, his jaw
set, his eyes grimly determined. His clothes were fine, a dark green sleeveless
shirt and pants, boots and a broad leather belt stamped with blue and gold
designs, silver rings in his ears. There was blood on his hands, staining a
copper and leather wristband, as if he had been butchering meat.

Cylides and Macritus lay tumbled on the floor,
unmoving, and Irissa was sprawled on the couch, her expression dazed, shaking
her head uncertainly. Ilias realized suddenly that the darkness had been
exactly like a sea wave; it had struck harder at the people who had been
standing up. He had been closer to the floor and it had mostly rolled right
over him.

The strange man’s eyes went to Ilias and moved
dismissively away. Then he saw Giliead still sitting on the couch. He smiled,
an oddly sweet expression, and said, “There you are, boy. I’ve been looking for
you.”

Wizard,
Ilias thought. It was a poet’s story come terribly alive. He opened his mouth
to yell for help and it was suddenly as if there wasn’t a breath of air in the
room; his voice came out as a near-silent croak.

Still crouched on the cushions, Giliead watched him
evenly. He didn’t look like a boy confronting a monster. His expression was
mildly curious, as if he had idly wondered what this moment would be like. He
said, “I was always here.”

The wizard took a step forward, still smiling but
eyeing Giliead narrowly. Tumbled between the couch and the wall, Irissa
struggled weakly to get up. Ilias saw a cup had fallen beside the table leg and
started to edge toward it. He felt as if he was trapped in one of Castor’s
horror stories of curselings and wizard-slaves. The wizard ignored both him and
Irissa, still watching Giliead. He said, “Menander was a fool to think he could
protect you.”

He wants to make Giliead afraid,
Ilias thought, knowing it by instinct. Ilias
stretched and reached the cup, lifting it uncertainly, meaning to throw it. Giliead
flicked a look at him and Ilias thought the other boy didn’t want him to
interfere, at least not yet. He kept hold of the cup and didn’t move, trying to
breathe as quietly as possible.

Giliead told the wizard, “The god protects me.”

From the couch Irissa managed to speak, her voice a
strained croak. “Menander’s here, he’ll kill you!”

Ignoring her, the wizard took two long steps suddenly,
reaching down toward Ilias. Before he could scramble back the man grabbed his
hair, yanking him half off the floor. Still watching Giliead, he said, “Silly
little boy. Gods don’t protect Chosen Vessels.”

Ilias clawed at the painful grip, still unable to cry
out, but the man had jerked him up so his toes barely touched the ground. His
eyes blurry from pain tears, he saw Giliead show emotion for the first time. His
eyes narrowed, the other boy looked angry. Giliead said, “You let him go.”

A door banged somewhere and a woman burst into the
dining room. Ilias recognized her from the market, but her hair was tied back
now and she wore a red-brown dress, and her face was strained and angry in the
lamplight. She carried a weapon Ilias had only seen a few times before, a
long-handled knife with a hook on the end, that he knew was for fighting on war
galleys. She saw the wizard and froze for a heartbeat, her eyes widening in
shock as she looked from the wizard to Giliead, then to Irissa still trying
desperately to push herself up off the couch.

The wizard said with an easy smile, “Come and join us,
Karima, the more the better.”

“How did you--” she started to ask, then must have
decided it didn’t matter. Her face hardened and she lifted the knife, starting
forward.

Giliead said sharply, “Mother, don’t. You need to get
out of the doorway.”

Karima stopped, throwing him a startled look.
She
won’t do it,
Ilias thought, despairing though he didn’t know why it was
important. Mothers didn’t listen to their children at the best of times, let
alone a moment like this. Emotions flicked across Karima’s face, uncertainty,
fear, resolve. Then she stepped sideways, out of the doorway.

The wizard started toward Giliead, dragging a
struggling Ilias with him. “Don’t try to trick me, boy, there’s no one to help
you. Menander is searching for me in the woods again, and the others follow
him.”

Giliead just cocked his head thoughtfully. “You
shouldn’t have used curses. You were real quiet up to then, and it couldn’t
hear you.”

The man stopped. Ilias couldn’t see his face but he
heard him breathing hard, and he felt something change in the room, as if the
air smelled different, or pressed harder on his skin.

“There’s a thing you don’t know,” Giliead continued,
still calmly, “The god doesn’t protect the grown Chosen Vessels. But it’s
different when we’re children.”

Try as Ilias might later, he couldn’t remember what
the god looked like, though Gil always claimed it had come down the chimney and
passed within a pace of him.

Ilias saw the puff of ash from the hearth, and heard
the wizard yell in alarm, loud and shrill. He let go of Ilias’ hair and Ilias
fell, scrabbling rapidly away. He looked back in time to see the wizard fly
through the doorway as if he had been shot out of a bow. He struck the low
dining table with a crash and the wood shattered beneath him, leaving the
wizard sprawled on the tile floor, unmoving.

A clamor of shouts and running footsteps came from the
front of the house. Karima stepped toward the wizard’s prone body, lifting the
boat knife cautiously, but the man just lay there, one last breath sighing out
of his limp body. If she hadn’t moved out of the way, Karima would be smashed
under him now.

Irissa managed to sit up, clutching her head with a
groan. “It took the god long enough. I thought he was going to kill all of us,”
she muttered. Cylides and Macritus both began to stir back to consciousness.

Ilias shoved himself upright and limped over to
Giliead. The younger boy slipped off the couch, standing barefoot in an
oversized blue shirt. An ordinary boy again, he chewed self-consciously on his
thumbnail. “Is he dead?” Ilias asked him quietly. The wizard looked dead but he
wanted to be certain.

Giliead nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

“Good.” Ilias took his hand and limped into the dining
room with him.

The room and the atrium beyond seemed full of people
suddenly, calling out in alarm, talking, anxiously leaning over the two
half-conscious guards, helping Irissa stand. Someone scooped Giliead up and
when Ilias stumbled and nearly fell, someone grabbed him too.

They ended up in the kitchen, with herbs bundled up to
dry hanging from the rafters and big storage amphorae stacked against the
walls. It was still pleasantly warm from the banked fire in the big cooking
hearth. There were a lot of people in there too, most of them armed, talking
urgently. In all the confusion, Ilias got handed over to a young woman called
Sabiras, who was probably Niale’s age, but her olive skin had darkened from the
sun and her hands were calloused and hard from work. She wore loose pants and a
shirt with the sleeves tied back, and her jewelry was all shells, with polished
cowries on her armbands. She set him down beside the hearth and made concerned
noises over his feet. She got some warm water from the pot sitting in the coals
and cleaned the cuts, which hurt but he managed to bite his lip and not cry. If
his behavior was going to be reported to his mother, he wanted to be sure he
didn’t make any mistakes. And after what had just happened with the wizard, it
seemed a small thing to cry over.