SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) (7 page)

A road ran
away from the unnerving square, dividing two rows of ugly buildings, and it was ugly, too—rutted dirt and broken brick and crushed stone with a strong smell of manure permeating everything.

After a few moments, Nylan realized his eyesight had returned to normal.
Everything was still fuzzy because a heavy fog hung damply over it all. At the same time, his thirst reasserted itself, overwhelming everything else. He cast around frantically, looking for anything that might be water, and caught sight of a horse trough less than a length away. He crawled over to it, and caught up handful after handful to his mouth, leaning against the trough with his hurt arm pressing against its side. The water tasted scummy and old and more wonderful than any water he’d ever had before. He drank until he was dripping and exhausted by the effort.

I have to move
. If I stay here, I might freeze.
Nylan struggled to stand up, leaning heavily on the edge of the trough. He turned back toward the brick building behind him and nearly threw up by the time he’d managed to get to his feet.

“
I’m sick,” he breathed. In spite of the cold and damp, sweat ran down his face. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears and each throb hurt. Even if he wasn’t sick, he was badly injured. Everything, even the slightest movement, sent spikes of pain throughout his body, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to just stay where he was. He needed help, but his head ached so badly, he wanted to cry.

He growled at himself,
“Don’t cry, stupid baby. Stop crying!” He stumbled back to the wall and then inched along it.

The wall turned to glass after he
’d gone only an agonizing few steps, and he paused and frowned at it. The glass was not very clear, and, instead of being one large piece, the window was made up of many tiny panes, but it was enough for Nylan to see himself reflected in it.

He looked terrible.
The blood on his hand and face had come from his nose and a smear of it ran across his cheek which was also darkened by an enormous bruise. His long, black hair was a tangled, filthy mess. His hand-me-down clothes were ripped and tattered, filthy and bloodstained. He frowned and turned his head sideways then looked away entirely for a moment before he could look back. More blood. It stained both his ears and had run down his neck on both sides.

He remembered unbelievable pain and brightness and knew his injuries came from somewhere in that fading memory of magic.
But this place felt empty to him. The lights, the glass, the buildings, the road. It was all so...

“
They don’t have magic,” he breathed, then bit into his sore lip to stifle the words he’d already said.

Stop.
Just stop. They’ll kill you.
How he knew this when he knew so very little, Nylan didn’t know. But he knew magic equaled danger in this strange land. But he also knew that he himself practically bled magic.
I have to stop thinking about it.

Because there was nothing else to be done,
Nylan walked on, not noticing the smears of blood his steadying hand left on the windows. He wondered where all the people were but decided they must all be asleep.
It must be very late.
How would he find a safe place to stay? Or food? It could be hours before morning for all he knew.

He turned the corner as the building did and stopped again.
Far ahead of him down this new street, lights came from the buildings. He started walking again, faster this time, and as he drew closer to the brighter lights, he could make out the sounds of a crowd of voices and music, as strange as everything he’d seen in this land so far, and he could smell food. He walked even faster.

A man turned toward him as Nylan finally came near to the crowd, and the boy sucked in his breath, all at once overwhelmed by the psychic noise the crowd was making.
The man called the attention of several of the strangers to Nylan, and they moved toward him, all talking and thinking so loudly he could barely stand it. He couldn’t understand anything they said and their thoughts and emotions made no sense to him, either.

I won
’t cry. I won’t!
But the people were coming closer, their minds growing louder as they did.

“
This was a mistake,” he whispered, dizziness roaring in his head. All the faces and minds were a babble to him, noisy and terrifying and too much to take. As the strangers reached him, Nylan, drowning in the chaos of the minds surrounding him, lost his fragile hold on his new reality and blacked out.

# # #

CHAPTER FOUR

Nylan blinked as a hand came too close to his face.

“
So, you are awake,” a man’s voice commented, his accent harsh. Whatever he was speaking, it was not quite the same language Nylan knew, but the man stood close enough that he was able to make out the man’s meaning if not his exact words.

He
’d been awake for some time, but he’d been trying to figure out what was going on before revealing this fact to his...

C
aptors? Rescuers? Where am I now? And how did I get here?

Biting his lip, Nylan
tried to sit up and found his left arm weighing him down, heavily bandaged and in a sling. His movement awoke all of his injuries at once, and his arm throbbed from shoulder to fingertips.

Opaque, white curtains tented him in with two strangers.
They wore long, white coats which seemed to blend in with the curtains. One of the men wore round, wire-rimmed spectacles and the other had a fastidiously-trimmed handlebar mustache a few shades redder than his slicked-back hair.

Nylan
’s shattered memory balked at both of these things, his first reaction being that they looked old-fashioned. Even their clothes were entirely unfamiliar, plainer and stiffer than the rich fabrics, colors, and needlework to which he was accustomed.

“
You shouldn’t move, child,” Spectacles was saying, a hand exerting gentle pressure on his right shoulder to keep him from continuing his struggle to sit up. “You’ve been through the wars, by the look of you.”

“
Yes.” Mustache’s frown deepened, making his mustache stick out even more prominently. “Be a good boy, and stay in bed.”

They stood on either side of him, twin towers surrounding his narrow cot.
He’d been dressed in a plain white shift and tucked beneath crisp sheets and a thin blanket, also white. All unfamiliar.

“
Do you have a name, child?” Mustache asked.

“
What a question, Morley! Of course he has a name!”

So, Mustache is named Morley.
I wonder what Spectacles’ name is.

Morley leaned in closer, his frowning face quite close to Nylan
’s. “Your
name
,” he said loudly, as if he thought the boy might be deaf.

My name
, Nylan thought.
Of course. They want to know my name.
But at that moment, he realized this was one of the many things he’d forgotten. Biting down even harder on his lip, he shook his head.

“
Hmm. This is a pretty mystery,” Morley muttered.

“
He’ll have to be reported in the
Sentinel
,” Spectacles said. “And JhaPel will have to be contacted if no one claims him.”

“
He’s absolutely lovely,” Morley said to himself. “And he has a look about him...I don’t know. Doesn’t seem the sort to be abandoned. Surely, someone will come for him.”

Spectacles
shot a sidelong glance at the boy and ushered his associate outside the curtain. Nylan could no longer make out even the occasional words he thought he understood, and he gave up as the men walked away, still talking.

Nylan
lay motionless on his bed, his good hand hugging the least-painful part of his hurt arm as if he had to physically hold himself together or lose his grip on the last thread of sanity.

He had no idea what his name was, though he knew he did have a name.
He had no idea how he’d arrived here in this place, though he remembered falling through the night and landing on the hard, wet ground somewhere beyond these white curtains. He had no idea what this place was. He had no idea who he was. Tears brimmed in his eyes, and he bit his lip harder to try to keep them at bay, tasting blood. For some reason he also couldn’t remember, crying was not a good reaction to the situation. He needed to be strong and brave.

A slim, angular
woman wearing a long white dress and a dark blue apron swept in through the curtains and smiled at him. Her light brown hair was pinned back but a few soft curls escaped to frame her pleasant, pretty face.

“
The healers said you were awake.” She sat down on the edge of his cot and gently pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. “Awake and alert, that is. At last,” she added, still smiling. “I was beginning to worry your fever would last the year.”

The moment she touched him, her thoughts and emotions became as clear to him as his own, and he flinched away from her as if she
’d burned him.

“
I’m sorry.” She drew back at once. She smiled at him, and he relaxed. Nothing she’d been thinking or feeling had been anything to fear.

They don
’t know what I am.
The thought ran through his brain quickly, and he flinched again. He didn’t want to remember that of all things. He couldn’t ask her about it, either, because what if it were true?
What if they kill people like me here? ...Why do I know that?
He’d just have to be very careful and try to figure out the truth without revealing his secret.

The woman
’s smile grew worried around the edges, and he pulled himself out of the spiral of fear and returned hers with a tentative smile of his own.
Should I know her?
he wondered. But that couldn’t be. If she knew him, she’d know his name, and the healers wouldn’t have had to ask him for it.

“
Who are you?” Nylan rasped. The sound of his own voice startled him. It sounded odd to him, the accent unlike the other voices he’d heard.

The woman frowned, seeming to be concentrating.
After a moment she smiled and made a small gesture indicating her failure to understand him. “You must be thirsty. I’ll be right back.”

She swept out of sight and returned a few moments later carrying a glass of water.
She set the glass down and gently slipped an arm under Nylan’s shoulders, helping him to sit up at last. She rearranged his pillows so he was more propped up than sitting, but once she was satisfied he wouldn’t tip over, she handed him the glass. Nylan reached out for it reflexively, and she smiled at him again.

“
Here you are, sir. The finest in the house.”

H
e drank down half the glass and tried to speak again. “Who are you?”

The concentrating look returned
, and this time she seemed to guess what he wanted even if he wasn’t sure she’d really understood him. “My name is Nanna Whiltierna. Most call me Nanna Tierna.” She stopped, realizing, he guessed, that she was saying too much in light of their language difficulties. She pointed at herself and said, “Nanna Tierna,” enunciating carefully. Then she pointed to him.

Nylan pointed at her, repeating her name.
She nodded, smiling a beautiful smile and pointed at him again. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“
I’ve been calling you Michael practically this entire moon. Do you like that?” She stopped, shaking her head and giving a small laugh. “Michael,” she repeated, adding a broad gesture that seemed to say, “What do you think of that?”

He brushed a long, black lock of hair out of his eyes, unconsciously echoing her earlier frown of concentration.
He pointed at himself and said, “Michael?”

“
It would just be until you remembered,” she agreed, nodding. All of her movements broadened as she tried to make him understand her. “Michael’s a good name.”

He
echoed her nod, accepting this new identity. He had to have a name—even though he couldn’t remember much of anything, he at least knew that—and he liked the way “Michael” sounded when she said it.

That question settled, she began to talk to him as if he could understand her.
He had the impression she’d been talking to him this way the entire time he’d been in her care. As she talked, she managed to remake his bed with him still in it, give him a general inspection, and change some of his bandages.

H
e took stock of his injuries while she worked, noting that the sling cradling his arm was sturdy and clean. This was a good place, he guessed, and he felt lucky to have been brought here.

He couldn
’t tell if his arm was broken and made a hesitant attempt to wiggle his fingers. He gave that up quickly when hot pain shot up his arm, but he couldn’t stifle a small gasp.

“
Oh, dear, Michael. Are you all right?” He nodded, clenching his teeth together behind closed lips to keep the pain hidden.

“
I’m afraid it’s broken and very badly, too.” Her hand brushed his shoulder inadvertently, allowing him to know exactly what she meant. “But you’re healing fast! Everyone’s amazed. You’re so strong for such a little thing.”

She went back to her bustling, still talking.
From all that she said, he thought he understood that he’d been found badly injured, had been very ill for quite some time, and no one had come to claim him.

Injured and ill.
This seemed to still be true, but he couldn’t remember how it might have happened. He remembered vague snatches of things which might as easily have been dreams or nightmares rather than what happened to bring him here.

He seemed to have no trouble remembering how the world worked and even finding things to be unlike what he expected them to be, but he remembered nothing about how he fit into the world, nothing about his own life
except for random absolutes including that he hated red soup and didn’t like honey because it was sticky.

W
hile he knew this was very odd, he found he was not much interested in discovering his lost memories. Something made him think it might be better to not remember, to start over from here, to not look too closely at what might have brought him to this place and this state.

He realized later that he had simply chosen not to try to remember.
As the days passed and no one came to claim him or explain what had happened, the newly-named Michael decided he didn’t want to know how he’d ended up so out of place and so badly hurt. Nanna Tierna was kind and patient, and she made an effort to remain a consistent presence in his life for the next several days. He allowed that to be enough.

He
remembered drawing, and after a day of having nothing to do but watch nannas and healers come and go, he acted out drawing for Nanna Tierna, hoping she might be able to find him some paper.

She seemed surprised by this development, but the next time she visited on her rounds, she brought him a
small stack of odds and ends of blank-on-one-side paper and a few, well-sharpened pencils. At once, their ability to communicate opened up considerably.

When next he visited his patient,
Spectacles couldn’t stop exclaiming over his small patient’s artwork. He held one of Michael’s drawings out as if examining a chart.

“
This is amazing! Are you certain our little lad, here, drew it himself?”

“
Of course he did, Healer,” Tierna declared. She gave Michael a wink.

“
I’d be interested to know just what else the boy can do.” He handed the picture back and disappeared beyond the curtains once more.

Tierna stared after him for a moment, a thoughtful expression on her face, then she, too, vanished.

This time, when she returned, she had a stack of books with her. Michael, delighted, reached out for them eagerly.

“
You can read?” She almost dropped the books in surprise.

“
Yes, Nanna,” Michael said. “I remember reading.”

It took him a bit of work to adjust to the dialect
—the one he spoke when he was found and the one everyone else spoke were both close enough to each other and different enough from each other to thoroughly confuse him. Spectacles—whose name, Michael finally learned, was Tineson—took a special interest in helping him sort through these difficulties, however, and with the healer’s help and Nanna Tierna’s, Michael was soon reading easily, his ability to speak the language growing with every story he finished.

By the time
Michael was well enough to leave the hospital and be sent on to somewhere more permanent, he and Nanna Tierna were fast friends. She saw to it that he was accepted at the JhaPel Orphanage which was run by her Order. She often stayed at JhaPel herself when on leave from the hospital and attended Holy Prayers at the temple there, so they would still be able to see each other.

Though it frightened him to be leaving the only place and people he could remember, Tierna
’s friendship and encouragement made him determined not to disappoint her by showing his fear.

Michael
dressed carefully in his second-hand clothes on the morning he was to go to JhaPel, put his papers and pencils into the sturdy pack Tierna had given him, and followed her out of the hospital and into a world he didn’t know.