Ward of the Philosopher (2 page)

He picked up another trail, this one barely visible. It didn’t look like anyone had come this way for a long time. His ankle loosened with each step, until the pain was little more than a dull throb.

The track snaked through the trees till it reached a steep bank. He caught sight of Nub slipping and sliding to the bottom, but Deacon had to go more slowly, grabbing onto the thin trunks of saplings to stop from falling.
 

At the foot of the drop, a brook chattered and tinkled, and Nub ran up and down its length, looking for a way across. Hard-packed earth formed a natural bridge a short way upstream, and they went over it together, the dog nuzzling Deacon’s leg.

“Maybe we should turn back, Nub,” Deacon said, crouching to pet him behind the ear. He felt sick to the stomach. There was something about this place that pricked at the base of his skull. He told himself it was the quiet, or that it was because he’d disobeyed his mother by straying so far from home, but the feeling refused to go away.

Nub licked his hand and went on ahead. Deacon let out a long sigh and listened for the children he thought he’d heard playing.
 

Nothing.
 

Silence.
 

He couldn’t even hear the scurrying of squirrels in the branches, the chittering of birds. Then, from somewhere deep in the forest, came the muffled rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker.

Nub had stopped at the edge of a broad clearing and was scratching away at the earth with his paws. As Deacon drew nearer, he could see a large mossy stone poking up from the ground. He knelt beside it and helped Nub scrape away the soil. Bit by bit, he uncovered the top of a weathered cross. The earth became too hard to dig it all the way out, but as he cleared some of the mud from its surface, he could just about make out numbers at the cross’s center and letters above them. His reading wasn’t good yet. They were saving that for the tutor, but he knew numbers well enough and sat down to squint at them: 1815-1837. They had to be dates from the time of the Ancients, because the Nousian calendar his mother taught him only went up to 878. So, this was what had got Nub all upset. He must have sensed there was evil here.
 

Deacon stepped away from the half-buried cross. Things like this were why he wasn’t allowed to wander far on his own. It wasn’t just the burial mounds he had to watch out for; his father had told him there were reminders of the Ancients’ world poking up out of the ground all over the Downs. Gralia said they were demons, the Ancients; that they never even knew Nous.
 

Something tickled the hairs on the back of his neck. He shot to his feet and spun round.
 

Back up the slope, a shadow moved between the trees, and a chill seeped beneath Deacon’s skin. He caught a glimpse of a masked face—piebald like a cow. He stood for a long time, staring at the spot he’d seen the figure, scarcely daring to breathe. There was nothing now: no sight, no sound. It could have been a ghost or a spirit, but then again, it could have been his mind playing tricks on him.

Nub barked and sped across the clearing. Deacon couldn’t help himself; he had to follow, if only to catch the dog and carry him home. He knew he was pressing his luck. Gralia might have been a soft touch, but if Jarl got to hear about him going off alone, there’d be the Abyss to pay.

Nub scampered toward a pile of rock. As Deacon caught up, he realized it was the ruins of a flint building. The grass all around was littered with broken stone crosses. Those that had been uprooted had triangles for bases.
 

A snigger cut through the stillness. Nub grew excited and ran back to investigate, but Deacon was far too interested in the rubble to care.

He clambered over what was left of the foundations. The roof had collapsed and fallen off to one side. A flat metal bird caked in rust jutted from beams of rotted wood. It was perched atop an arrow. To the rear of the wreckage, there were long stone boxes set within tangles of weeds and creepers. The lids of a few were cracked clean in half, and set among them were winged statues of robed men and women—all of them headless. The heads stuck out of pockets of wildflowers, covered with lichen and crawling with snails. Deacon drew back when he caught one staring up at him with empty eyes—eyes that had probably not seen a living person in hundreds of years.
 

And that was a thought: why did no one come here, not even the grown-ups? The track was so faint, it can’t have been trodden for ages, and yet the ruin was only a stone’s throw from the village with all its families and roving children. Someone must have known it was here.

Nub’s yipping reached his ears. It was shrill, mixed in with taunts and laughter.
 

“Nub?” he called.

He heard the bulldog rip out three or four sharp barks. There was a muted thud, and then Nub whimpered and went quiet.

“Nub!”

Mocking voices answered from where he’d last seen the dog headed: “Nub! Nub-Nub. Here, doggy, doggy.”

It was Brent Carvin and the Dolten girls.

Deacon clenched his fists. Why couldn’t they leave him alone? Every time his mother took him into the village, they’d start. She thought they were just playing, but he knew better.

He ran toward the laughter but froze when he came back round the ruin and saw a lump amid the shrubs. Brown fur twitched, and he knew right away it was Nub. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he lurched toward his dog. Bright blood speckled the blades of grass Nub had fallen on, and there was a gushing hole between his eyes.
 

Brent Carvin stepped from the tree line brandishing a slingshot. The Doltens followed, like the sheep they were, and behind them came Rob Marlin and his brother Mik.

“Ah, shog, mate,” Brent said. “Was that your dog?”

Deacon knelt by Nub, stroked him gently behind the ear. A red-stained rock lay in the grass a few feet away. Nub shivered, and his breaths came in gurgling rattles.
 

“Is,” Deacon muttered, wiping away a tear.

“What’s that?” Brent said, stepping toward him.

The girls giggled, and the Marlin boys sniggered.

“Is my dog,” Deacon said, glaring. He didn’t care that Brent was older and bigger.

“Not for much longer, mate,” Brent said, smirking at the Marlins. “Not the way it’s breathing. Still, you have to admit, it is one ugly son of shog.”

“Yeah,” Lucy Dolten said. “You can’t blame Brent. We thought it was gonna bite.”

Her sister stuck out her pointy chin. “It was gonna attack us, weren’t it Brent? Weren’t it Mik, Rob?”

“That’s right,” Rob said. “Macy’s right. You shouldn’t be letting that thing run wild out here.”

Deacon pressed his nose to the dog’s. Normally, Nub would have licked his face, but he just didn’t have the strength. He whimpered and shook, and then his sad brown eyes rolled up into his head.

Someone scoffed; Deacon didn’t see who. He made a fist around a clump of grass.

“Aw, don’t cry,” Lucy said. “It ain’t like it was Brent’s fault.”

Brent loomed over Deacon. “Yeah, it weren’t my fault, so shut up with the baby tears, right?”

Deacon flashed him a look, dried his eyes with his sleeve, and stood. Don’t back down from a bully, Jarl always said. Gralia didn’t agree; she said to walk away, pray for them. That’s what Deacon always did, ever since he could remember, but he didn’t see much good coming from it. Nub deserved better than that.

“He was a bulldog,” he said. “Maybe the last.” Certainly one of the last, if Jarl was right. The Ancients had bred them that way, for some odd reason, but people these days needed real dogs: dogs that could hunt and fight.

“Shogging pig-dog, if you ask me,” Mik said, and Rob snorted out a laugh.

“So, what’s your point, Momma’s boy?” Brent said. “Don’t matter what kind of dog it was; it’s a dead dog now. Maybe you and your loony mom should light a candle and say some prayers to make everything better.”

Deacon’s fist came up, but his arm was rigid with tension, and it just stayed there, a threat no one was going to take seriously.

“Go on,” Brent said, sticking his chin out. “Put it right there, holy boy, or are you gonna piss your pants like last time?”

He hadn’t. That wasn’t true. He’d run, that’s for sure, but only so he didn’t have to fight. Better a coward than a sinner, Gralia always said.

—
So why does your father fight?

He clamped down on the thought as soon as it arose. It was the Demiurgos messing with his mind, trying to make him doubt, but he would give no ground to the Lord of the Abyss.

“Shut up,” Deacon muttered under his breath.
 

“What’s that?” Brent said.

—
Why’s he fight, if it’s a sin?

“Shut up,” Deacon said more firmly. He meant it for the niggling voice of the Father of Lies, but Brent didn’t see it that way.

White exploded in Deacon’s head as Brent’s fist smashed into his nose. A second punch split his lip, and he tasted blood.
 

With a roar that seemed to come from afar, he grabbed Brent by the throat and drove him back. The other kids scattered out of the way as Brent’s arms flailed about wildly. Fire surged through Deacon’s veins. He slammed Brent against a tree trunk and pressed tighter with his thumbs. The slingshot fell among the roots, and Brent’s eyes bulged as he grunted and choked. Deacon saw himself bashing the boy’s head against the trunk till his skull cracked and his brains splattered the bark. Saw himself punching and punching till Brent’s ribs snapped like dry twigs; saw himself snatching up a jagged rock and pounding it into Brent’s face, over and over and over…
 

But instead, he let go.
 

Brent was on him in a flash, thumping, kicking, snarling. After the first few blows, Deacon didn’t feel much; he was dimly aware of each jolting impact; he knew he was on the ground with Brent on top, swinging and pounding. But the tears burning his eyes weren’t from the beating: they were for the Lord Nous—for the sin of rage that had so offended Him.
 

PRAYERS FOR NUB

D
eacon cradled Nub in his arms as he pushed through the garden gate and let it squeak shut behind him. His cuts were stinging, his arms numb from the bruises that were already turning yellow. But at least the tears had stopped, and maybe he’d done enough for Nous to forgive him.

He could see two shapes through the kitchen window, and his heart skipped a beat. It was Jarl, back for his birthday, after all.
 

He took a lunging step and then faltered under the weight of the dead dog. He couldn’t face his father like this, covered in bruises, without a single one on Brent; and Gralia would cry and hug him and make it all a whole lot worse. And what about Nub? What would they say about Nub?

Gralia peeked out the window and then opened the door. She covered her mouth and stared with wide eyes. There was a flash of white behind her, a hand on her shoulder. Only, it wasn’t Jarl: it was an old man, bald and bearded, and he was wearing a white robe that hung over one shoulder. His blue eyes sparkled, keen as stars on a cloudless night. The barest hint of a frown tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Sweet Nous!” Gralia brushed the old man’s hand off and ran to Deacon. Together, they lowered Nub to the ground, kneeling over him like the two sages over the Nous child in the crib on the mantelpiece.

Gralia pressed her forehead to Deacon’s, wiped at the fresh tears spilling from his eyes with her thumb.

“Oh, my boy, what happened? Who did this? And Nub—”

“Dead, Mother. Nub’s dead.” Deacon’s body was racked with sobs, and soon Gralia was crying with him.

The old man loomed over them, and he rested a hand atop Deacon’s head.

“But you won’t say who did it, eh, lad? Seems you are right about him, Gralia: the makings of a luminary. Nous must be delighted. I bet Jarl’s none too happy, though.”

Gralia looked up, her sobs dying in her throat. She drew a sleeve across her damp eyes. “Then you don’t know him as well as you think,” she said. “My husband’s a fighter, true, but he’s not against me on this.”

“And neither am I, my dear,” the old man said. “Quite the opposite. You have laid the foundations, but we must not neglect the strengths of the father, if young Shader here is to be the man he should be.”

“It’s Deacon, not Shader,” Deacon said, rolling his head away from the old man’s hand. “Father’s Shader.”

The old man gave a long studied look at Nub’s lifeless body and chewed his lip. When he spoke, it was almost to himself, as if he didn’t really care if anyone was listening.
 

“Under my tutelage, you are Shader, as would your father be, were he my student. It’s how we did it in the old days, and it’s how we’ll do it now.”

Deacon hefted Nub into his arms again and stood, finding Gralia’s eyes. He shook his head, wanting so much to say, “It’s my birthday, Mother. Do we have to do this now?”

“Maybe he’s still too young,” Gralia said, ruffling Deacon’s hair.

“Seven is what we agreed,” the old man said. “You, me, and Jarl. It’s the perfect age. The age of reason.”

“But, Aristodeus—”