This story is a work of fiction. It contains references to violent behavior between adults, and expressions of physical affection between consenting adult males. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the consent of the author.
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons All rights reserved by the author.
1 Stand & Unfold Yourself
Bernardo: Who's there?
Francisco: Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself!
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1, Line 1
He awoke to a clammy heat. Warm, shifting red turned to amber when he opened his eyes. Fire. Its nearness stifled any waking thought. A rough surface at his back propped him up; and stymied retreat. Darkness skulked around him, threatened obscurely, yet he sat ensorcelled by the vigour and rhythm of the fire before him. The steady flow to the flame promised pain, destruction. He knew nothing and saw nothing but a framing night and the fire, which, in ebb and flare, enticed and beckoned him even while whispering danger.
He caught himself straining for sounds of warfare - echoes of metal clashing or cries of pain. Only the creak of swaying tree limbs, the occasional snapping of the blaze, and the low drone of insects taxed his ears.
A firm, tangible weight on his shoulder startled his gaze up into another man's lean, grim, face, formed suddenly out of darkness. Punctuating his alarm with a raspy whimper, he slid from the chill grasp. Panic launched him into forest shadow.
A too-brief sensation of relief doddered after him as he sought escape, stumbling weakly from tree to tree. Doubly blind with fear and the fire's green after-image, his flight ended when he jolted over unseen mischief and fell.
Rhythmic crackling and shifting of autumn litter gave out a pointless alert of the other man's triumphal and so, neck bared; he waited for the finishing stroke. His wait dragged on. At last, feeling baited, he dared a glance upward and saw a thin-faced young man, weaponless and ashiver in the chill night.
"Come," the lean face spoke. "It is safer, and warmer, by the fire. Come." Instead of a sword or dagger, he held out a small and calloused hand.
Dismayed, the prone man hesitated, sweating to recall such a face, to imbue it with menace, to give himself a reason for his flight. Torn between suspicion and embarrassment, he accepted the offered arm and an assist back to a small camp.
When he sat back against the tree he had fled, his lean-faced pursuer asked him. "How do you feel? Do you ache anywhere?"
Breathing heavily, he did a quick assessment. "My head hurts a bit, and my ribs bothered me when I stood. I smell of.... I don't know what! I feel like a fool, haring off mindlessly." He gazed deliberately around. "Where am I?"
"We are in the Verge, just past the Wastelands. Nothing but forest and purlieu to confront now. If your sides ache, it is because you have spent the last day and a half slung over my horse. Hence, the odour. That may account for your headache also. I found you two days ago in the Kul Wastes, insensible, draped over a shallow wooden crate. It took me half a day to get up the nerve, as well as the means, to take you with me."
The questioner raised an eyebrow in surprise and query.
"On the one hand, I am likely the last traveler from Kwo-eda until winter passes. But to find a man senseless and callously discarded in the midst of such desolation suggests mayhem and danger. A ruthlessness I would not wish to run afoul of."
"Or an indifference..." The castaway murmured.
"I am called Aldul mek Alinda, late of Kwo-eda and bound for the Archate Temple. How do I address you?"
The stranger opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came. His mind blanked, more thoroughly than any effort could have accomplished. Before manners drove him to improvise, he heard someone answer.
"m'Alismogh. I am m'Alismogh."
Aldul merely nodded.
Dismayed, the derelict looked away, baffled by his involuntary response. Under threat of burgeoning hysteria he realised that he had answered with a title, rather than a personal name: m'Alismogh. The Songmaster.
"Where do you hail from, m'Alismogh?"
As before, his mind turned coat. "Name the nearest towns for me." He asked, uneasy.
His request drew a look of confusion, then a smile. "Towns near each other? What an idea! What would be the purpose in having a town, then? My home, Kwo-eda, is ten days constant walk south. Alta-edda is a good four to five weeks north and east. Donnath-lwin is two weeks north north-east. Osedys, my destination, lies between three to four weeks north and west. Arkedda, still further north from there."
One name Aldul gave echoed in m'Alismogh's ear with a different voice. "Osedys. I come from Osedys. I believe."
"Good." Aldul said tersely, looking far from surprised at the coincidence. Without either having to say so, both understood m'Alismogh struggled with an insubordinate memory. "How did you come to be in the Wastes?"
m'Alismogh refused to accept the silence this question elicited. After reflecting a moment, he tendered. "When I woke just now, I thought myself imperiled in some way. In immediate and certain danger. When you bent over me, in the wood, I had expected to see an enemy... and a sword in your hands. I had expected death."
"That sounds like battle."
m'Alismogh pondered a moment, then nodded.
"I have not heard even rumour of one in nine years. Since the debacle of Mausna-now-lost."
"This was battle, nothing less. Though at the moment I cannot say where or who we fought."
Grim-faced, the Kwo-edan waved the argument aside. "I concede. But the Kul Wastes are a strange choice for recouping. How many years do you have, m'Alismogh?"
Again, the man took time before answering uncertainly. "More than fourteen years." By which he asserted that he had achieved manhood.
To this grave claim Aldul could only laugh; a soft wheeze of amusement. m'Alismogh's face must have betrayed annoyance, for the Kwo-edan quickly explained. "That, chel'lismok(2) , is certain. If I had to hazard a guess at your age, I would say you had at least twenty, maybe twenty-four, years." The man made no response, as if he could not trust his voice any more than his mind.
Having been as inquisitive as he felt appropriate for one night, Aldul proffered. "We will have many days of travel for such riddles and questions. I am just glad you're awake, and can now clean and bed yourself." He responded to m'Alismogh's startled gaze with a roguish grin and a set of blankets and cleaning rags.
For a long time Aldul watched m'Alismogh, through deceptively lowered eyelids. m'Alismogh saw a glint from their fire reflect off the Kwo-edan's narrowed eyes. His own mind wrestled in too much weary confusion for m'Alismogh to take umbrage, and he soon began snoring with shameless verve.
m'Alismogh's dreams soured by dawn, and he awoke wailing through a dry throat, a single dread image seared in his mind.
Though trembling uncontrollably, m'Alismogh said nothing through the morning meal and the loading of the horse. Aldul, likewise, said little, apart from occasional directions and suggestions. m'Alismogh appreciated the Kwo-edan's restraint and his quiet, solid, presence. Only after they had walked away the morning, only as time, activity, and the little commonplaces of the journey muted the dream's effect, did m'Alismogh feel inclined to talk.
"Did I make any noise last night?"
Aldul huffed a brief laugh, but kept his attention on the direction they needed to keep traveling in. "You snored. Most of the night, I think. At dawn you let out a great shriek."
"I hope I did not wake you with my noise. My mind traveled down a dreadful road this morning."
Aldul nodded, still facing forward. "I've ridden a few nightmares myself. Do you recall what made you cry out?"
"One image. Macabre, but not horrible in itself." Trusting Aldul's guidance, m'Alismogh stared at the ground passing under his feet. "It was of a man, lying prone, his head twisted about and facing me. He rested partially on the edge of this step or platform. It. The face was pale. Bloodless. He was dead, of course. He lay dressed in battle gear... and he was sopping blood! But my waking mind wants to drape him in purple. That's what had me screaming."
"And his face?"
"If I had a stylus I could do a limning. I could etch it. I see it too clearly even now."
"Describe the face."
"Black hair, peppered with white. Not gray, white. A high forehead, blue-gray eyes, and clean-shaven. An oddly bulbous nose."
"Eyebrows? Nose? No. No need to answer. Do you know who this man was?" When m'Alismogh shook his head, Aldul went on. "He was kin to you. Close kin. Your shriek this morning was not from fear. It was a keen of grief."
m'Alismogh halted, incredulous. "Grief?" He repeated the thought a few times in his head, and then nodded as some instinct celebrated its truth. He resumed walking.
"Yes." Aldul confirmed. "It unearthed my memories of nine years past. Such cries resounded through every home in Kwo-eda, as we got the war-tolls from Mausna-now-lost."
"Mausna?" m'Alismogh queried. "Oh, yes. You mentioned Mausna last night. So a great war got fought there?"
Aldul stopped pulling the horse, stunned wordless.
"What? Don't look at me so!" m'Alismogh barked, loud with frustration. "I cannot remember! I don't remember any 'Mausna'." Uncertainty imbued his voice.
Tripping occasionally from his distraction, Aldul resumed pulling the packhorse where it didn't want to go. He kept his thoughts to himself, his gaze fixed forward. The land stretched out flat to the south - the direction from which they had come - likewise to the west and the east. Scattered here and there, clusters of trees broke up the monotony of grassland. Off to the north - their destination - huddled the first of a series of hills, like a foggy rift between the earth and the skies.
After a bell's-length of silent trampling, Aldul spoke.
"Do you remember learning of the Nikraan invasion?"
"Yes. A confederacy of islanders who led a synchronous attack on all our settlements. Their tyranny lasted over one hundred years. But that was long ago."
"Yes. I am encouraged that you do remember your lore. Did you know that Kwo-eda and Osedys had kept a... a web.... of hidden observers in the islands ever since our emancipation? So, when islanders formed yet another alliance and concentrated their cutthroats on one province, Mausna, Osedys rallied the other towns to Mausna's defense. Only Arkedda refused. Even Alta, the City of Peace(3), mustered legions of combat-innocent citizens. With the regions assembled, and with the island confederacy nowhere near the need or numbers of the Nikraan Advent, everyone anticipated a bloody but inevitable victory. Our elders did not reckon the land itself would rebel."
Aldul halted, tightened his grip on the reins, and rapped the horse near the nose with his staff for trying to bite at him.
"One month after the provinces had assembled at the battlefield, the Kul spat fumes and lava, and the plains of Mausna disappeared in quake, aftershock, and flood. In less than twelve days, both the barbarians and the flower of our manhood were destroyed."
"None survived?" m'Alismogh could not grasp the scope of the havoc Aldul described.
The Kwo-edan shrugged. "Only fighters with disabling wounds: Those carted to Kwo-eda for healing. The messengers going to and from the field with reports for the provinces. And those turned coward."
"And this happened nine years ago?"
"Yes. What little is left of Mausna is swamp and straits. Does any of what I've said seem familiar?"
For many steps m'Alismogh kept silent, stumbling a bit over the burrows of moles and grassland detritus in his concentration.
"The banner of Osedys, is it a willow with a small harp hanging from a branch?"
"No, that's Alta. Azure background. Argent harp. Vert willow."
The Alismok halted in midstride and promptly sat in the low grass to cradle his head in his hands. He could feel Aldul's presence beside him almost immediately; quiet, willing to help without intruding. After a moment spent breathing deep and swallowing repeatedly, m'Alismogh lifted his head and assured his companion. "I am recovering. This sharp pain hit me just behind the eyes and made me nauseous. But it has passed."
"And you have no idea why it arose?"
"It happened as a tableau came to mind. Of hundreds, maybe thousands, of men and women. Armed in different ways; spears, swords, slings... All standing in rows, and garbed in brown, gray, and green. One in the foreground held a pennant with the Altan blazon and a slogan(4) below it. And I.... I think the sight had made me cry. A feeling of great excitement, but great sadness also. Then the pain tore anything else from my mind. I had to sit or I would fall."
Neither man spoke for a time. m'Alismogh, at first, appreciated the rest; it let the sweat, which had soaked him after the crisis, cool. Yet as Aldul continued to glance back in the direction they had come, the Alismok grew restive, uneasy.
"What are you thinking, Aldul?"
The Kwo-edan turned and smiled uncertainly at the Alismok. "I am thinking I shall not push you for memories not ready to emerge."
They resumed their march, and Aldul refrained from a mention of battle. He proceeded to point out various plants and trees, native to the region, which he used for medicine and cooking.
"So you've been this way before?"
"This far? Only once, long ago. Some plants I use can be found only in the Verge - the border between the Wastes and the grasslands. But I've escorted travelers to the Verge, and its traditional stopping-points."
"Will we get to one before night?"
Aldul shrugged.
Feeling weary, m'Alismogh fell silent.
As the day's end approached, m'Alismogh's halts for rest became more frequent: the toll of a walking convalescent, recovering from an undeterminable time in the Wastes. Near evening the Alismok found and stripped a dried bay-tree branch and used it for a walking stick.
"So, are we getting close?" He asked after supper, sated and relaxing by their evening fire.
Again, Aldul shrugged. "I couldn't say for certain. The stopping-points are only well-marked clearings with their own fire-pits, locations used out of habit. Not necessary destinations."
"Oh." m'Alismogh blinked rapidly, as if to clear his sight.
Aldul noted the hair matting to his companion's forehead, along with an occasional shiver. "I've been pushing the pace, I think. Since I had to leave Kwo-eda I wanted to do so quickly, as if it would hurt less. Get another blanket and cover yourself up more. It may take a bit of time before you recover from Wasteland exposure. Tonight you know what you need to do; sweat it out. Some tea, a little oak bark with chamomile, will help that. In the morning we will find a spring or river nearby for you to wash the sweat away."
With a groan, m'Alismogh obeyed. "Sometime soon, I would like to stop being a burden."
Aldul actually smiled, startling m'Alismogh. "You are not a burden, m'Alismogh. You are a riddle."
The next morning, Aldul laid down a basic rationale for their time en route:
"You are in poor shape from the debilitation that the Wastes imposed. So I refuse to rush. Do not try. Also, for all intents, with your memory.... crippled, this is your first long trek. Let me explain what you should know: Any such venture is a paradigm, a symbol, and an opportunity for recapitulation. As such, you may find yourself feeling ill once you reach your destination. Or feeling ill just before."
"Why do you expect that?"
"Look at me. I have uprooted, left all I knew. Left the habits and world I built around myself, for an unknown. Even though I have left all that, it has not yet left me. Whether I am aware of it at the time, building my caulta(5) again will disorient. And rough or traumatic experiences etch themselves on the body. So, you may come down ill later, as the body adjusts to its new challenges."
True to his word, Aldul took his time over the next few days. He introduced m'Alismogh to the aromatic value of pennyroyal oil for keeping certain vermin at bay. He proved to be a trove of knowledge regarding both herbs found in the Verge and those growing further north, beyond his actual cordon of experience.
"Indeed, if I had wanted, I could have made a tidy sum in preserving such wild roses as can be found throughout the Verge."
"Then what stopped you?"
"You may think it silly, but there was no challenge in it. I did retrieve some, quite a number. But mostly for those who knew too little of beauty, and were not likely to see or smell such a wonder otherwise. And any success in preserving them still could not compare to the living, thriving rose itself. Many people wanted the roses, but not the trouble it takes to keep them alive. I have no time for such, people either lazy in heart or in body. So I preserved a few, for those who were too old or infirm to garden, and for others I carted home the live plants and their soil."
For his part, m'Alismogh never showed signs of boredom or surfeit. When Aldul chose to rest his voice, m'Alismogh demonstrated a capacity for peace.
"So many people cannot abide their own thoughts, their own company." Aldul remarked once. "But your silence has no strain to it."
m'Alismogh shrugged. "Perhaps it is simply from my having no memory, and therefore little personality...."
Aldul winced. "You hardly lack personality, m'Alismogh. Which leads me to suspect that your memory is not dissipated, merely submerged or asleep for a time."
Troubled by such a hope, m'Alismogh returned to silence.
At the third day's greeting, Aldul reminded his companion of the baggage which had served as his Wasteland bed.
It looked like a patchwork box, narrow slats of some light-toned wood, three hands wide and three feet long. The lid sported a leather strap securing it. For additional precaution, purple wax had been liberally poured over a section of the join where it opened, and an impression in gold leaf set therein: A roundel, with a sword pointing upward, broken at mid-blade. No inscription. The box could not be opened without destroying the seal.
"I don't know which bothers me more, the ensign itself, or my having to destroy it."
"What do you mean?" Aldul murmured.
m'Alismogh pointed to the join. "I look at that simple design, and... Nevermind."
"No, m'Alismogh," Aldul insisted, and reached out to stop the opening of the box. Aldul just refrained from touching a tense and stiff-limbed m'Alismogh, sensing that such contact would not be welcome in that moment. "What do you think? What do you... guess?"
m'Alismogh released a hard breath and stared at the wax. "Well," he drawled out, uncertain of his rescuer's indulgence. "Suppose I had, indeed, come from battle, or had been part of a militant guild." Aldul nodded, accepting the premise. "Were we an ambitious family or guild, can you think of a more pathetic symbol to sport? A broken sword!" The Kwo-edan, raised in a province rife with military symbols belonging to a surfeit of miltant disciplines, blinked and huffed out a self-mocking laugh. He had become inured to weapon-images, so much so that he had failed to see the obvious.
"Also. The very simplicity of the siglum tells me that this image's absurdity is intentional, and meant."
"Meant to provoke, you mean?"
"Yes!" m'Alismogh all but shouted, relieved to be both understood and taken seriously.
"There's more, isn't there?"
m'Alismogh nodded. "It's a bare broken blade. No sheath, no peace-tie. And set in a placement that signifies 'defense position' or a salute."
"So the bearer stands ready to protect, or is saluting his adversary before or after engaging him?"
"Yes." m'Alismogh stared down at his trembling bare hands. "I feel strange to be telling you this. You would know more of this imagery than I."
Aldul grinned. "Now there's the oddity, m'Alismogh. I grew up surrounded by it, so I paid it no mind. My father cared only for music, so I never learned anything about the militant disciplines until I joined the Temple. All the emblems, slogans and blazons littering the buildings were simply ways of identifying those buildings. Like you would tell someone you would meet them under the 'burning hand' at the tenth hour... And so on. What you tell me is new to me, and has the ring of truth."
"Thank you. Who ever wears this must have a supreme confidence in their... discipline. To make its' initiates sport an ensign that seems to glorify a weakness."
"You're assuming, then, that it is not a badge for a specific cadre within an army?"
"There would be accompanying marks identifying the kingdom."
"So the thought of opening this? Of breaking the seal?"
For several breaths, m'Alismogh did not answer. When he finally replied, m'Alismogh stared at Aldul like a desolate child. Tree shadow and glare conspired to make m'Alismogh's eyes appear colourless but for the black of the pupils. "I don't know. No. That's not true. Its a message, an obligation, to me. I guess I should know the ensign, the sender, but I don't."
The lid lifted easily. The insides looked to be nothing but a thick rectangle of navy cloth, until m'Alismogh pulled at it and heard the tinkle of metal from within its folds. Flipping back a corner of the material, m'Alismogh pulled out a helmet of polished blue-gray metal, fashioned in the likeness of a swan: two lozenges of silvery metal curved out from the temples, sweeping back and down to the back of the skullcap in the shape of wings, covering the ears. A cylinder of metal, painted white, looped up above the brow, and back down to a teardrop-shaped jewel that centered above the nose-guard and served as the swan's beak.
Aldul took up a position opposite m'Alismogh so as to see his reactions. m'Alismogh's face betrayed nothing; his hands, however, trembled furiously until he had the helm settled on the ground.
Dragging back another fold of the cloth, revealed two items: a latched book, intricately damascened front and back, and a small felt and leather writing satchel. m'Alismogh smiled, but did not unlatch the book.
m'Alismogh flipped another fold of the cloth back, and unveiled two more items. He unknotted its drawstring and up-ended the dark-gray purse, out of which tumbled four rings and two leather wrist-guards. One ring, of silver set in an intricate interlace, fit on his fourth right-hand finger. One ring, a milky-red band with an onyx or obsidian crown the size of his thumbnail, fit best on his left forefinger. The third ring was of grime-rimmed gold, set with a black incised stone; the pattern seemed to be of a cat or ralur guardant. That ring did not fit any of m'Alismogh's fingers, likewise the fourth, which was gold and patterned like the first ring.
Aldul looked over the third ring and realised its discolouration was due to use as a signet. Having understood, without verbal agreement, that both of them would look over what were ostensibly m'Alismogh's possessions, Aldul made no comment when m'Alismogh failed to yield up the fourth ring for examination.
Next from the crate came a scabbarded sword, clearly the reason for the box's length. The scabbard consisted of bleached leather with blue silk and a splattering of dried blood. The blade looked to be of some blue-toned alloy with an undulating shimmer in the sunlight. m'Alismogh simply examined the scabbard, then set the whole thing aside, disinterest plain in his manner.
Flipping back yet another fold revealed three more items: An ivory whistle with seven finger-holes. A silver-backed oval on a chain, a portrait limned on one side and the figure of a man riding a dolphin on the other. And a second book - a folio.
The folio pages were filled with lines and small squares: musical notation. m'Alismogh looked through the book, shook his head, and tied it back up. He slid the trinket over his neck. He picked up the pipe with a frown, then quickly set it on the ground untried. Aldul moved to pick the whistle up, when m'Alismogh intercepted his hand.
"Please," he whispered. "Don't."
"As you will. Why?"
Obviously uneasy, m'Alismogh shrugged. "I do not know, but I do not like the thing."
m'Alismogh pulled back a fold to reveal the bottom of the box, then, gripping a cloth seam, stood and let the material unfold into a ankle-length hooded cape.
"Do any of these things seem familiar?"
"All of them except the pipe, the music-book and the last ring. The signet was my father's. Blast me if I know how I know this." m'Alismogh lifted the miniature to peruse. "And I know this man from somewhere." He looked away for a moment, ensnared in some reverie. "I loved him, I think."
Aldul stood and joined in the examination. A square face stared out, long black hair, dark skin, mustachioed, young with the corners of his mouth upturned in a smirk. The portrait left one hawk-winged eyebrow raised, as if the subject mocked the vanity behind even making such a miniature. Aldul glanced from the trinket to catch a slightly glazed expression and a happy grin on m'Alismogh's face.
"That will serve you well from this point of the journey on." Aldul observed, pointing to the cape.
"As well as add further hazard for an already clumsy walker." m'Alismogh added.
The idea of traveling stirred romantic images in m'Alismogh's mind, the reality destroyed them utterly. Every moderate to loud night-noise unsettled him, sending messages of flight through his weakened nerves. The first time he volunteered to roast their supper, he burned the back of his left hand and the fingertips of his right. Foraging for another meal, he inadvertently gathered foxglove with the ruffage, rendering both he and Aldul jittery, high-strung, fluxed, and nearly helpless for a day and a half.
Came a day Aldul decided to add to their diet and went afield to hunt. He insisted m'Alismogh remain at campsite to rest, after m'Alismogh had begun trembling and sweating during the walk that morning. Listless, discontented with his own weakness, m'Alismogh thought to gather deadwood for the evening fire.
Midway in picking up a limb, his own limbs failed him completely. Noise assaulted him, overbearing. It resembled nothing so much as a tin-whistle and a hunting horn, in argument with some deep-toned stringed instrument, and competed in head-piercing and stomach-twisting discord. Staccato notes trilled and shrilled in his ear, as though they were crouched beside him, thrumming through his body in waves of convulsions. For a dragging moment of terrifying length, with his will and attention equally divided between the pain and the cacophony, m'Alismogh could not breathe. The ear-splitting chaos of sound demanded what the muscle-burning agony did not sap away. As the dissonance ended in crescendo, perversely on a single, harmonious chord, m'Alismogh knew only a dark, warm silence.
He awoke to gray eyes staring at him from a tanned face, concern creasing the skin around them. The texture against his back meant another tree, and dampness chilled his buttocks.
"Aldul?"
"How is it with you, m'Alismogh?"
It was a long moment before m'Alismogh could say. "I don't know." After another moment, he added. "I had a brainstorm, I think."
Aldul nodded. "That is uncommon, ch'Alismogh, though not unheard of. What can I do?"
"I don't know. Aldul, I am afraid."
"Let me check a trap I have over here, then pull out a change of clothes for you. Stay put for a moment."
"Alright." m'Alismogh agreed, not wanting to nod his aching head.
Aldul looked him over, then rushed off to a tree cluster nearby. A few shaky breaths later Aldul emerged with a squirming rabbit in his grip. "That makes two. We are going to feel stuffed tonight."
Aldul put his knife under the animal's nape and sliced diagonally. A wave of sound and pain ambushed m'Alismogh, he gave a hoarse cry of protest, and blackness reclaimed him.
He awoke as before, with Aldul gazing at him in concern - and a little fear. "Aldul?" he repeated, foggy with exhaustion.
"How is it with you?"
"I..." He could not answer, only turned his face to the ground and wept his fear and dismay. After a moment, Aldul placed a hand on his shoulder; the tentativeness of the gesture hurt.
"What manner of man am I?" Weariness and emotion turned his question into a cry.
"Shhh..." The hand gripping him grew firmer.
"Aldul... Don't you be afraid of me, too. Please?"
"Forgive me, m'Alismogh. With a moment to think, I don't fear you at all. But I fear for you."
"What..." His throat spasmed. "What do you mean?"
"Left in the Wastes, losing your memories, and now this... The only person hurt by you has been you. Repeatedly."
"I would understand if you wanted to go your own way. Gods, would I understand!"
"Shhh... Don't talk nonsense. Granted, we are companions by necessity. Even so, I admire the man I see, m'Alismogh. Whatever else you are, you have patience and courage. Rest here a moment. I do have one proposal to make."
m'Alismogh waited until his voice would serve him. He turned around to face Aldul. "What is that?"
"I think we should abstain from meat for the remainder of our journey."
m'Alismogh took a deep breath, untensing. "Maybe after tonight's meal."
"Are you sure?"
m'Alismogh tried to smile. "I laboured over those rabbits as much as you, it would seem." The smile fled. "You don't fear me?"
Aldul huffed a brief laugh. "Do you mean me ill?"
"Never."
"Then I don't fear you. It is that simple. No need for you to move. I'll build the fire nearby. Just rest."
But I'm afraid of me, m'Alismogh thought. "What am I?"
"A riddle. A man." Aldul shrugged.
To their surprise, m'Alismogh's seizures did not further debilitate him, after a night's untroubled sleep. After a week, m'Alismogh's wind and endurance built up to equal Aldul's. They made enough noise in their trammeling that any small predators that might be near became occupied with concealment or flight, rather than stalking. So m'Alismogh traveled from the Donnag to the Kerilawyn River almost unharried by a brainstorm. He had one fall when, just as dusk settled, they happened upon an owl fleeing their path with some rodent in its claws.
As before, m'Alismogh heard a strident cacophony in his head, and pain sufficient to knock him to his knees. When Aldul hurried to his side, however, m'Alismogh had already tottered to his feet. "I don't understand." m'Alismogh muttered. "It hurt abysmally, but I did not pass out this time."
"You are not as weak or un-nerved as you were, then." Aldul guessed.
"Good. I miss the venison."
Aldul huffed out a laugh. They did indeed eat a trifle better through the last leg of their journey.
That same night Aldul came back from a wood-foraging trek to see m'Alismogh, his own pile of faggots beside him, rummaging through his cache of belongings. The priest said nothing, as he added his armload to his companion's, then sat a pace away.
"Some of these items trouble me." m'Alismogh confessed.
"Which ones?"
"It might be a shorter list if I say which ones do not." He waved vaguely at the box behind him. "The war-helm. All I know of it is that such was its purpose, and that I have never worn it. I hate the thing! The sword and scabbard; all I can say about it is I don't like the blue silk, it makes me feel like I would be a target if I bore it. And the wrist-guards."
"What of your flute?"
"Its not mine. Its... perilous, dangerous somehow. I wish it had not been in the crate."
Aldul accepted this. "And the rings?"
m'Alismogh's brow smoothed. "The rings..." He stared down at his be-ringed fingers. A smile flickered across his mouth. "The patterned ring..."
"Yes," Aldul prodded. "I have never seen that arrangement before."
"He called it 'Love-lies-bleeding'," m'Alismogh muttered.
"Who?"
m'Alismogh made of fist of his hand and wrapped his body around it, suddenly miserable. "I don't know!" he choked.
"Why are you crying, m'Alismogh?"
"I don't know!" he repeated. "But my chest hurts with it."
"Could the person who named the knotwork be dead?"
Aldul regretted the words as soon as he spoke them. m'Alismogh jerked his head from side to side, as a strangled humming sound emanated from the back of his throat. m'Alismogh's shout rang in the Aldul's head. "M'rnakh(6)!"
The Kwo-edan did not know the word, but the meaning was unmistakable.
After m'Alismogh recovered, he straightened and resumed his scrutiny of the ring. "I fear you may be right. I am not certain. I do know he made both this ring and the gold one like it. The gold one was his to wear."
"And the pattern?"
"Was my choice."
The convalescent sat staring at the silver for a long time.
"Anything else?"
"Just the feeling that I am missing... something."
"Give yourself time. It may emerge." Aldul bade.
m'Alismogh shook his head. "No. You don't understand. I look at this ring, and I know I am missing something, someone... I can almost smell... salt. And feel... arms about me, holding me up..."
"Holding you up?"
"And... blood."
Not surprised at the turn in m'Alismogh's recollections, Aldul waited.
"Nothing more. I remember nothing more of this. The ring with the red gem was, I think, a gift from an aging woman. I can see her as clear as leaf-glow, but I cannot grasp her name! I think... she was a tutor. Its all muddled with other things!"
"Like?"
"All in sadness. The man from my dream holds the ring out to me. But then its her, instead. And she's crying."
Without hesitation, m'Alismogh bagged the gold ring, then fingered the pendant. "This is old."
"How do you mean? Before you were born? Before your father had a father?"
"Yes. Older. But I can see the man in the portrait settle it over my neck. I'm being fanciful, it seems."
"Do you know any names, m'Alismogh?"
The man scowled. "No. That's not right. That's not my name."
"What is your name?"
m'Alismogh shook his head again. "That is a great question. The answer is playing hiding games inside me."
"How do you feel?"
"Angry. Frustrated..." The man known as m'Alismogh whispered. "Lonely. And a... scared."
"Is there ought I can do?"
The beleaguered man nodded vigourously. "Tell me again. What you told me earlier today."
It took Aldul a moment to realise what m'Alismogh wanted. The Kwo-edan looked his companion in the firelight-whitened eye.
"I admire the man I see. I do not fear you. But I still fear for you."
-------------------------------------------- (2) chel'lismok - a light endearment affixed to his name. (3) Formed as a sanctuary for Hramal slaves who had escaped the Nikraan. (4) Slogan - sluagh-gairm (host call) battle cry. (5) caulta - routines, habits; accepted, filtered, perceptions. Daily points of reference & stability. (6) Never (an obsolete term; lit. sun-draught - an impossibility)