The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (20 page)

“What language is this?” she asked, looking
over the random assortment of runes with increasing confusion.

“It isn't any
one
language,” he
replied, eagerly turning away from the food Ivy was offering. “It
is shorthand. I record my ideas in the language in which I can
state it most tersely. It allows for a very information dense . . .
“

Ivy interrupted him by shoving the next bite
of food into his mouth.

“You, stop asking questions,” Ivy ordered
Myranda, turning to Deacon to add. “You, stop answering them. You
are never going to get better if you don't eat something.”

Myranda grinned at how seriously Ivy was
taking her new role. When the dutiful creature was satisfied, she
made sure that each of those in her care were as comfortable as she
could make them, and watched over them until real sleep came, not
the exhausted unconsciousness that so frequently took its place.
When she was sure that they were resting properly, she eagerly took
her meal and her rest as well.

Lain watched as she nestled between them. He
scarcely believed it was possible. He'd never had a place in this
world. He'd never belonged. All that he had, he had carved for
himself. All of the problems that he faced, Ivy faced tenfold. She
did not even know her past. Even her form was forced upon her. And
yet, here she was. This was her place. These were her people. He
turned to Ether. On her face was the look of detached disdain, but
behind it there was something else. Something out of place.

Ether watched Lain sit and begin the trance
that took the place of sleep. As she did, she smoldered with an
emotion she never imagined she would feel. Envy. It was only right
that the pitiful creatures of this world envy her, but to envy one
of them? Or two or three? They were useless, weak, foolish, and yet
. . . they had the respect, even the adoration of Lain.
Lain
, who in Ether had found his sole equal, instead
squandered his attentions on the blasted facsimile. When he spoke
to Ivy, there was affection. When he spoke to Myranda, there was
trust. When he spoke to the shape shifter, there was none of that.
He actually saw her as an annoyance, while the manufactured beast,
one who is naught but a liability, is coddled and fawned over. What
could the two of them possibly have that she lacked? And the two
humans. They found in one another what Ether was denied. It was a
sign of weakness to desire this waste of time, this mental illness
that they called love. Nevertheless, the yearning for it consumed
her mind. She tried desperately to force the thoughts away. They
had led her to betrayal in the past. If she could not master them,
there was no telling what they might drive her to. They were a
weakness, a weakness she'd convinced herself that she simply
lacked. Now, after an eternity to prepare wasted, she was at their
whims.

Without sleep as a respite, the thoughts
steeped in Ether's mind for a silent few hours. Lain was the first
to stir, stepping outside to survey the conditions outside and plan
their next steps in the journey. Myranda was second, Ivy waking
shortly after.

“Have you recovered from your act of idiocy?”
Ether asked with her usual level of contempt.

“I feel as well as I ever have, thanks in no
small part to Ivy's excellent care,” Myranda said. It was not
entirely true, but she was better by far than she had been the day
before.

“Oh, it was the least I could do,” Ivy said
shyly.

“Enough!” Ether shouted, turning away from
the spectacle.

“Are you well enough to move on? We have
lingered here for too long,” Lain said.

“I am,” Myranda replied.

“Me too!” Ivy chimed in.

“Wonderful. That only leaves us with
Myranda's latest lost cause,” Ether remarked.

“No need to worry about me,” Deacon said,
groggily.

He managed to stand, but it was clear that
the night had not been as kind to him as it had been to the others.
There was improvement, to be sure, but he clearly was far from
well. Twice he nearly fell as he gathered the scattered books and
paraphernalia he'd removed from his bag. When he took his crystal
into his hand, it became clear that the weakness went deeper than
his body. The light in the crystal flickered dimly as he tried to
cast a simple spell to supplement the fading glow of the meager
fire. Finally he gave up on the spell.

“It would appear that without a touch of the
divine to keep it at bay, the curse cuts a bit deeper,” he
surmised.

“Are you certain that we can continue?”
Myranda asked.

“I'll manage well enough, but I fear it will
be a few more days before I can cast a spell,” Deacon replied.

“Tremendous, then you are completely useless
to us,” Ether stated.

Deacon picked up his bag.

“I shall endeavor to avoid being a burden to
you,” he promised.

“A lofty goal,” the shape shifter
sneered.

“You are meaner than usual . . . and I didn't
think that was even possible,” Ivy remarked.

Ether silently moved to the mouth of the
cave.

“When the lot of you are through wasting
precious time, I will be outside,” Ether growled, stalking out.

When all had been gathered, and the remains
of the previous day's meal was choked down as breakfast, the group
set off. The long storm had dumped a remarkable amount of snow on
the narrow valley. Whereas it had taken a bit of a climb to reach
the mouth of the cave when they sought shelter, they were almost
able to step right out of the mouth and onto the fresh snow. It was
a thick, icy mix. That was a blessing. The lighter snow would have
caused them to sink fairly to their hips as they trudged through
it. The dense blizzard snow merely swallowed them to their ankles.
They would be slowed, but not by much. They continued north. Lain
seemed familiar with the area, knowing without consulting the map
that the pass they were making their way through would let out into
a wide, deep valley.

Myranda and Ivy stuck close to Deacon,
concerned that he might fall behind. Thankfully, once the fresh air
got to him, he perked up, making his own way with only slightly
more difficulty than the others. Conspicuously absent, though, was
his constant note taking. He'd tried it for the first few minutes,
but without his magic to hold the pages flat against the wind and
layout his other materials, it was simply too difficult. He finally
put the book away after he finished reading Myranda's entries on
the trials they'd survived in the cave.

“I thank you for your thoroughness,” he said
between gasps of the thin, freezing air. “I look forward to
rewriting it.”

“Rewriting?” Myranda asked.

“Oh, not to worry. I intend to use your exact
words, but I find that I remember things more completely if I write
them myself,” he replied.

“I don't see how you could possibly manage to
write in that shorthand of yours. Honestly, how many languages
would one need to know to read it?” Myranda wondered.

Deacon thought for a moment, replying. “All
of them, I suppose, though less of some than others. And I suppose
the abbreviations I use will complicate matters as well. Well,
regardless, there are at least three people back at Entwell who can
read it . . . Not that any of them will. I wouldn't be surprised if
they've burned my books by now.”

“You really believe that?” she asked.

“Well, there may be one or two who might care
about what I may write . . . Azriel, but she'd never leave the
arena to see it. Calypso, Solomon. I don't know. I've broken nearly
every rule that we'd all agreed to live by,” he said.

His voice carried regret, as naturally it
would, but a dash of realization as well, as though it was just now
occurring to him.

“I will not be remembered well,” he
added.

Myranda placed a hand on his shoulder. He
took her hand in his and looked her in the eye. Instantly the
regret washed away as he was reminded why he'd done it in the first
place.

“But so be it. This is where I need to be,”
he said. “This is where I belong.”

Ivy marched along beside them. She had heard
the tale he’d told when they first met. Of what he'd done to get
here. Of what he'd left behind. As she turned it over in her head,
slowly she came to realize that all that he'd left behind . . . a
home, friends, comfort . . . Things she could never remember
having. The memories of the days before she was rescued came in
brief, blurred flashes. Until now, she'd never truly felt that she
was missing anything, that these people who had found her were all
that she would ever need. But now, she felt the tiniest twinge of
longing, or at least curiosity. What was it that had been taken
from her? Was it something as wonderful as he had given up? She
would not trade her new friends for anything, but without so much
as a memory of her own name, she felt incomplete.

“Myranda?” Ivy asked.

“Yes?” she replied.

“Do . . . do you think I'll ever remember
what it was like before? Who I was, I mean? Any of it?” she
asked.

“In time, I'm sure it will come to you,”
Myranda said.

“With any luck you won't,” Ether
remarked.

“Hey!” Ivy objected.

“Have you forgotten what happened last time
you remembered? You were on the verge of losing control. Better to
avoid pushing your weak mind to its limits,” Ether reminded.

“That was because it was something bad I
remembered! There will be good things too!” Ivy asserted.

“And you would like to learn of all of the
wonderful things in your life that were destroyed during that
tragedy? Do you believe
that
will bring you happiness?”
Ether asked.

“I . . . I don't know. I don't care! They are
my memories, I want them back!” the confused creature replied with
finality.

She crossed her arms. Ether's words had
turned her mild yearning into a burning need. It grew quickly into
an obsession. She wanted to know now. No. She
needed
to
know. To satisfy her own curiosity, to prove Ether wrong, just to
know. The reason was eclipsed by the need. A tiny nagging worry
prodded at her, questioning why it could have come to mean so much
so quickly. It was ignored. The smoldering hunger for the knowledge
grew.

They crossed into the valley, and if Ivy had
been in a lighter state of mind, she most certainly would have been
struck by the beauty. It was left pure white by the fallen snow and
sparkling in the light of the moon, which was peeking through a
rare break in the constant clouds. The silvery light revealed a
wide, crescent shaped plateau leading around one edge. It sloped
steeply upwards a few dozen paces to the east, and dropped sharply
down into a low, flat bottomed valley to the west. Where they
stood, it was perfectly level. Down in the valley, a thin river
caught the light of the moon, flowing in a lazy curve, west, east,
west, and east, like a pair of cresting waves, with a ring of five
trees opposite the trough between. The image stirred a weak memory.
It was familiar. As quickly as it had come, though, the notion was
gone, a surge of anger sweeping it away, and a thought rushed in to
replace it. Ether had existed since the beginning of time, and
she'd ended up with no more than any of them, and yet she looked
down on them. The thought stuck in her mind. Since the beginning of
time . . .

“Wait a minute! YOU KNOW!” Ivy accused. “You
know about what I was!”

“Don't be a fool,” Ether said.

“No, no, no. You must know. You've been
around forever, right? Either you know about me, what I was before,
or you are even more worthless than I am,” the malthrope said,
poking Ether in the chest for emphasis.

All eyes turned to the shape shifter.

“Myranda, tell this cretin the circumstances
of my time in this world in the recent past. You may be able to
phrase it in words she might be able to comprehend,” Ether
fumed.

“Oh, I know. Myranda has told me plenty of
stories. You were sort of everywhere, able to look but not touch
until Myranda and Deacon and his people brought you back. But you
did it to make sure you'd know when Chosen, LIKE ME, showed up,
right? So I say it again, either you know about me, or you couldn't
do the ONE job you claimed to be doing for all of that time,” Ivy
said, a flicker of yellow and red betraying an ounce of triumph
mixing with her rising anger.

“Fine . . . I was aware of you, but that was
all. You were just a little girl, not worthy of my interest yet,”
Ether hissed.

“A little girl . . . what was I like? Did I
have a big family? Was I human or an elf, or . . . “ Ivy asked
eagerly.

“It didn't matter, you were too young to have
any attention paid. At the time there were dozens of potential
Chosen in the world, each and every one of them more powerful than
you. I had my doubts that you were Chosen at all,” Ether
explained.

“Do you at least know my name?” Ivy
begged.

“Names are meaningless. It would have been
the last thing I would have sought,” Ether replied.

“How do you even know it was me?!” the
creature raved.

“You were a prodigy of music, art, all manner
of frivolities, but you weren't the only one. Since then the others
have been tainted or killed. You were the only one whose fate I was
not certain of,” the shape shifter said.

“I . . . I can't believe it! Even before you
knew me you were looking down on me! And because I just wasn't
INTERESTING enough for you, you just paid me no mind! You could
have known it all, everything! You could have had all of the
answers to all of my questions! But you were too small-minded even
then to take the time to so much as look in my direction!!! WHAT
ABOUT THE MASSACRE!?” Ivy cried, a flare of red surging as she
grasped the shape shifter's currently human form by the cloak and
pulled her nose to nose. “You didn't think to save anyone, not even
me, one of your own PRECIOUS Chosen?”