A Hero's Curse (2 page)

B
eing blind isn’t all bad. Uncle Cagney says it’s not uncommon for other senses to take up some slack if you lose one. So I get to touch colors. The smooth feel of silk reminds me of high, clear voices and red. Rough wool bags remind me of rich brown dirt and deep gravelly tones—like Dad's voice. The feel of Tig’s thick coat reminds me of water flowing over smooth rocks and yellow sunshine—I suppose because he’s always warm. I haven’t ever had to see my morning hair. I don’t have any idea what a molting arcus vulture looks like. And I can hear, smell, taste, and feel like no one else in my family.

It helps if you have a coach who can teach you to interpret the smell of the night, feel the direction of prey, and taste danger on the breeze.

Tigrabum has a long gray coat tipped with black at the end of his ears and tail. Mom has said he must be the largest cat in our Kingdom of Mar. He loves catching grasshoppers and anything else that moves but despises having his belly rubbed. It’s “undignified,” but if I sit down with him I usually end up with a lapful of cat. He has stayed with our family since I found him as an abandoned dusty ball of fuzz nearly eight years ago, and he lets me call him “Tig.” He also speaks our language, Lingua Comma.

At some point I must fall asleep on the trunk. Uncle Cagney puts a blanket over me and leaves me. I toss and turn all night. Tig complains and moves to sleep above my head.

I wake up. Or do I? The day feels like more of the same—gnawing, groaning, darkness. Inky blackness inside and out. I have pitied myself many times over the years; sometimes because I’m hurt, but mostly because I deserve to feel sorry for myself. Today is different.

Mom and Dad are gone. They now live and breathe the dust and pain of the camps, and I feel alone and helpless to do anything.

I know about the camps. We all do. I haven’t ever been clear to the bottom of our valley to our capitol city of Plen, but the valley folk talk. The camps were announced last fall as “work projects” outside Plen. They were our interim ruler Brogan’s idea. At first it sounded great; half the kingdom was already wondering where they were going to get food since the drought has gotten so bad. Hundreds flocked to the capitol to sign up for temporary work contracts in the camps. But then word got out about what they were building: weapons, magical ones, on a mass scale. Brogan sells at least some of the weapons to the Hasarrii, a fierce tribe of spiderlike creatures across the sea.

Dad says selling weapons to the Hasarrii makes Brogan a traitor. But he doesn’t say that in the valley market. Brogan has too many mercenaries and informants everywhere. Just about anybody will turn in a neighbor for a loaf of bread now. Getting turned in means getting sent to the work camps. As for the camps themselves, they have turned into graveyards. Mysterious explosions shake the camps almost every day. “Too many farmers trying to handle magic,” Dad says. So many people died in the first couple of months Brogan started drafting workers with taxes due and keeping those who signed up longer than their commitment. Now it’s almost impossible to get out of the camps once you’re in. I can’t understand why my parents would have willingly gone to the camps, even if we do have taxes owed. It’s insanity. It’s a death wish.

All day I find myself catching my breath to shush Uncle Cagney or Tig as I listen for the sound of my parents coming back up the road or, my mind suggests cruelly, the sound of messengers coming to report my parents died in an accident.

However rotten I feel—for myself or my parents, I can’t always tell which—it’s impossible to retreat into myself like I want. Uncle Cagney and Tig see to that, but in different ways.

Tig won’t let me retreat because he knows me. He knows the deep isolation I feel when Mom is overprotective and Dad avoids me. He knows the isolation himself—he doesn’t know who his parents are or where he’s from. He’s different from other cats. He’s bigger than any domestic feline, faster, stronger. He thinks differently. He’s tried to explain it to me. It has something to do with protecting and the way he feels bound to me instead of looking out for himself. And of course there’s the Lingua Comma oddity. He’s different, a loner. So we watch out for each other. Not just on the outside, but on the inside, too. He is my friend, my hunting tutor, and most importantly, my eyes.

Uncle Cagney on the other hand has always been the best storyteller I know. To hear his stories is to leave myself behind. Nothing has changed. His tales are as wild as ever, and he never fails to find some adventure to fill the hours. Dad said that after they fought together as kingdom protectors Uncle Cagney turned pirate, but Uncle Cagney insists it was just merchant trading. Part of me is thrilled at the idea of getting Uncle Cagney to tell stories away from my parents. Too often he has started a story or wandered into a subject that has been cut off with a tongue clicking or a sharp cough from whichever of my parents is in the room.

As we do chores and put new timber along the bottom of the hay shed he rumbles through innumerable adventures and battles—some ancient, some more recent—all in a world far from our little farm. I feel like being distant and quiet, but as he describes marches around the Valley of Fire with hundreds of heroes, of rock basilisks, and dragons, and spies, and no water to drink, and a battle far to the west in the Gray Wastelands for a place called Stone Forest, I interrupt in spite of myself. This is forbidden ground. These are the stories that don’t get told in our home.

“The Battle for Stone Forest? Was that after Dad fought at Cauldron’s Crater? They’re in the same region right?”

Uncle Cagney ignores most of my questions. “Not really much of a fight at Cauldron’s Crater,” he replies dismissively. “But it’s good to see you’re listening!” If there is one thing Uncle Cagney likes better than telling stories, it is telling stories to an interactive audience. I can imagine a grin cracking his whole face and his eyes crinkling up, like my fingers would feel when I used to try to read expressions with my hands. He is always grinning when he tells a story.

“What happened at Cauldron’s Crater?” I repeat. “I’ve heard a little about the Battle for Stone Forest. King Mactogonii led the protectors against a daemon to the west of the kingdom and they lost . . .” I trail off, to let Uncle Cagney pick up the story about the daemon who is causing the drought that is killing our kingdom.

Uncle Cagney smacks his lips, but then hesitates and changes course. “Well, mostly the Cauldron’s Crater mission was to scout out what we were up against . . . and sure it was before the Battle for Stone Forest, which is where most of the action was anyway,” he says evasively. “Not much to tell about Cauldron’s Crater.”

“So Cauldron’s Crater was supposed to be a scouting mission? What happened? Why did heroes die?”

Uncle Cagney is quiet for a moment. I don’t think he will give in, but then, “We found something. Killian, your dad, he saw it . . . something that changed him . . .” He fades off, grabbing another plank from the pile in front of us.

“But what? What did Dad see?” I press.

“But things went wrong. You wouldn’t understand,” he says, harshly enough for me to pull back a little. “Even I didn’t understand,” he mutters softly. “We were ambushed is all that matters. Evanhearst. Cronlin. Greashin. Bones and Brunch—all of us. Then we came home. Without ’em. First time as I can remember that kingdom protectors weren’t brought home. First time as I can remember something got the best of Killian.”

I run my fingers in little spirals through the dirt. I was a toddler at the time. “How did Dad react when he heard I was blind?” I ask.

I hold my breath. I know from snatches of conversation that this is when I went blind, while Dad was on mission at the Cauldron’s Crater. I was only two. I feel Uncle Cagney studying me, but I want to know: Is that why Dad hardly talks to me, barely hugs me? Because I’m blind? The old burning in me wells up—like it’s my fault, and I’m ashamed of being blind, but I can’t change it.

“He took it poorly. I think he blamed himself for not being there.”

I hear him turn and shoulder the new board into place and nail it down. Then he goes on to describe extraordinary ships he has sailed and faraway ports that he has visited.

I wonder at his evasiveness. It’s unusual for Uncle Cagney to avoid a question; normally he would have grabbed at the opportunity to tell another story. Mom and Dad don’t talk about Cauldron’s Crater or the daemon that brought such destruction into our world. They rarely talk about anything that touches on life before the farm on the edge of the Valley of Fire. I don’t have the energy to pursue the subject, but inside I vow to ask him again in the coming days. I listen and hold Tig and miss my parents.

Despite having been outside with Uncle Cagney all day I sleep restlessly again. This time the shadowy silhouettes of my parents are being forced to dig so deep into the ground that no light can reach them. Even their silhouettes disappear. I find myself forced to follow them, and just as I find them, I am suddenly granted my sight, only to find that there’s nothing to see but inky blackness.

I wake with a start. Tig groans in his sleep, and I feel him roll over, taking up most of my pillow. I focus on my brightest and most colorful memory. I concentrate on Mom’s red dress. My fingers curl around the piece of silk she gave me, and my breathing calms. My red dress. I try to imagine myself in the red dress. In my imagination I look a lot like my mom. I wake to Tig licking my face. I sputter and push him away. There is no way to ignore a cat’s tongue on your face.

Uncle Cagney helps me with my chores, and as always, he is talking, this time about growing up with Dad. “Of course, I was the big one in the family,” he says proudly. “Why when we were at the palace and Keira—your mother—”

“What’s the king’s ‘First Champion’?” I interrupt. We’ve moved on from the hay shed to the horse barn. Ants love to eat the piece of timber that runs around the bottom of the buildings. Since we have removed the old rotten wood, we are now patching the hole with new timber.

“Well, your dad was First Champion for a long time, I suppose he told you about it?” asks Uncle Cagney.

“Not really,” I reply.

“Oh.” He is silent a moment, and I can feel him studying me, weighing whether he should tell me, wondering why my parents have not told me anything about their lives. I guess he can’t see any harm in telling me, because he continues. “Well, First Champion is the king’s right hand, if you like. He commands the heroes in battle, meaning all protectors and the district guardians. He advises the king regarding all things having to do with the protection of the kingdom. He even deals with foreign emissaries and stands in for the king if the king is away or occupied.”

“Or missing,” I interrupt again. I’m treading on sensitive ground, bringing up the fact that king has been absent since early last year. Mom and Dad don’t talk about it. In fact, this is one subject that even the market folk tend to avoid, mostly.

“It’s rude to interrupt, but yes, missing counts, too.” I can hear the grin back in his voice.

I smile apologetically in his direction. “So Dad could have been king instead of Brogan last year?” I ask.

Tig jumps into my lap. “That would have been nice,” he mutters softly. “Mmm . . . another year picking a living out of a dried up farm ooooor—” and he drags out the “or” “—infinite luxury in the palace.”

Uncle Cagney snorts, “Brogan’s not king. He’d like to think he is, but he’s only a placeholder until the king returns. Brogan’s not even Champion—haven’t had one since your dad resigned—he’s just a district guardian. And a snotty one at that. But yes, Killian—er, your dad—would’ve filled the post if he hadn’t quit all those years ago—” Uncle Cagney hesitates and then continues, “well that’s neither here nor there,” he says briskly, although his voice tells me he thinks it’s very much somewhere.

I bring to mind everything I can remember about Brogan. He runs the kingdom since King Mactogonii disappeared last year. Dad doesn’t like him. Dad says he threatened and intimidated to get into his position.

Uncle Cagney continues, “It was because your dad was Champion that he was leading the scouts at Cauldron’s Crater.” I perk my ears but try not to look too interested. “Of course that ended as a mess,” Uncle Cagney sighs, unaware he has changed subjects. “We didn’t know what we were up against. The daemon, I mean. We’d heard reports of funny things happening in the swamplands of Bangular to the west of us. It’s not a part of this kingdom, but its close enough we keep an eye on goings on. Whole region being destroyed an’ some kind of portal opened from what we heard. I hate swamps, personally, though I’m not trying to say it turning into the petrified trees and ash of the Stone Forest is any better. King’s Champion is supposed to protect the realm. Look out for that kind of threat.”

Uncle Cagney’s voice has adopted a distant quality. He sounds like his mind is a thousand miles and ten years away. “So we went. Only a squad. Found the portal. Some kind of black pool at the bottom of a great big depression. Called it ‘the Cauldron.’ Musta been quite an explosion to blast that kind of crater. We knew something evil was around because we could hear it. Laughing. Calling some of the boys by name. Then the whole area turned into some kind of illusion.

“One minute it’s all blasted black sand and rock and mist, and the next it looked like the nicest little green hollow you’ve ever seen. Great tall grass and trees and everything, except for that black pool. That was still there. Then a black fog rolls out of the cauldron and through the valley. Couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Half the squad killed in less than a few minutes, and we can’t even see what’s hittin’ us. Got separated even. Then here comes Killian out of the darkness holding sunfire. Powerful stuff that, and just about priceless. Didn’t even know any of it still existed. Still can’t figure where he would have got it or who would have given it to him. It burned the mist away around us and showed us what was real and what wasn’t. But sunfire burns up quick when you ignite it, so we double timed out of there pretty fast. There were only five of us left. We couldn’t even go back to get the bodies. That tore your dad up pretty bad. We promised we’d come back with mages who could handle battle magic and illusion, get them then. Killian was different all the way back, though. In a hurry, like something was chasin’ us, ’cept there was nothing behind us. When your dad got back to the palace you were blind—” Uncle Cagney stops awkwardly.