Book of Remembrance: The Forgotten Gods: Book One (44 page)

He led us into the kitchen where
a boy sat with his back turned to us. For a moment, heat started flashing in my
chest, before he turned and looked at us curiously, but there was something more
than curiosity glinting in those dark eyes. I tried to see whether he resembled
Trissa. I supposed that his mouth had the same up-twist at the corners; he also
had the same copper tones to his hair. If not his appearance, that brief flash
of heat was enough to convince me that we had the right boy.

Thopher was busying himself with
putting the kettle over the fire and brewing the tea.

“Please, sit,” the boy said and
gestured to the chairs.

I sat down across from him. “I
heard you say that your parents came past here?” He did not wait for an answer
before continuing. “You do not look like siblings. I can usually tell. I think
that is because the people I live with are not really my family.”

I saw the man give a reflexive
jerk, but he did not say anything and he did not pause with making the tea.

“Is that so? Where is your real
family then?” I saw that spark that I could not quite name quickly replace a
glimmer of sadness in his eyes.

He shrugged. “I know my parents
are dead, but I do not know about my sister. I could not make them let her
stay.”

Again, the man jerked. This time
he turned from what he was doing and started moving towards the boy. He was
opening his mouth to say something when the boy spoke. “Thopher, the tea is not
yet done. You should finish preparing it, my guests are waiting.” The man
obediently turned back to the kettle and continued what he was doing.

I looked at Alathaya and saw
concern in her eyes.

“Where is Raminda?” She kept her
voice soft and soothing.

He shrugged again. “I asked her
to get me some things from the market. I suspect she must still be busy with
that.”

She smiled at him, but it looked
brittle. “What is your name?” Her hand was half across the table as if reaching
to take his.

“Dhillion.”
At some
moments, he looked much older than his years, his eyes as hard as any man’s,
but at other times, like now, he looked like a scared little boy.

I glanced over at Thopher.
 
I did not want to reveal our true identities
and our reason for coming with the man standing right there, but how long were
we meant to play this game? “Dhillion, we have a friend who would very much
like to see you. Do you think you can come outside with us to meet her?”

He did not hesitate a moment.
“Of course.”
He stood up and led us to the door.

When Thopher made as if to
follow, he said over his shoulder, “You should stay and finish what you are
doing.” He promptly turned around and went back into the kitchen.

As soon as we were outside, I
looked around for Trissa. I did not have to look for long. She came bursting
around a corner at a dead run. The moment Dhillion saw her, his face
transformed. Pure joy washed across him and he ran to meet her. He was taller
than she was and when they embraced, he actually lifted her off her feet and
swung her around. She laughed deliriously.

When he set her down, she held
him at arm’s length and between wiping tears from her eyes, looked him up and
down. “Look how big you are! Oh, I thought I would never see you again!” She
burst out in sobs. “I am so sorry I could not stay with you! I tried Dhillion,
I tried, I promise.”

He was hugging her again and
patting her on the back, hushing her. “I know, I know. It was not your fault.”
That made her cry
even more.

At that moment, a sturdy woman
with wiry brown hair came hurrying up the hill towards the house. Her face was
a mixture of horror and fury. She rushed towards us, her hands full with
baskets filled with market goods. Before she could utter a word though,
Dhillion spoke. “Raminda, you need to take those things inside and help Thopher
with the tea.” His face had gone calm again and that glint was back in his
eyes.

She did not even nod to
acknowledge the instructions, but simply kept walking right past us and into
the house.

Trissa laughed through her tears
and asked, “I always said you were too bossy, but how do you get them to listen
like that?”

She was joking, but I thought I
knew now what his Talent was. It was the first time that one of the Alliance
members’ Talents actually scared me a bit.

“Dhillion, you do not need to
stay here any longer. You can come with us. We will explain it to them,” she
put venom into the last words, “but no matter what they say, you will be
coming.”

He beamed. “We do not have to
explain. I will just need to pack a few things.”

Trissa made as if to come with
us back into the house, but I stopped her. She scowled at me. “Let me through.
I need to talk to these filthy scum people. They just took him away from me!
They knew what was happening and they did not have a problem with it.” She
tried to push me out of her way, but I did not move.

“We can take him from here
without any fuss. Without drawing attention to what has happened. Believe me; I
do not think they will come after him,” I said and looked over to Dhillion
where he stood talking with Seran. “He will not let them.”

Her face turned perplexed, but
she stopped trying to get by me.

Dhillion walked past me and I
followed him back into the house. His room was spacious and comfortable to the
point of being luxurious. His bed was big enough to sleep three people and when
I sat down on it, I was sure it must be a feather mattress. The house did not
look like that of a rich man, so I was surprised to find it so. He fetched a
travel bag and a cloak and started packing his things.

Thopher came into his room while
he was still busy. “Dhillion, the tea is ready.” His voice was flat, but his
face was strained. If I had not been able to see his body, I would have thought
he was straining to break free of physical bonds.

The boy looked at him coldly.
“Go to the kitchen and have the tea with Raminda.” Without a word, Thopher
turned and walked out, presumably to go and have the tea as he had been
ordered.

We walked past the kitchen on
our way out and Dhillion stopped a moment. He looked in at them sipping their
tea. His face was unreadable. “Raminda, Thopher, I will be leaving now and I am
not coming back. You will never come looking for me and you will never send
anyone in your stead. You will feel this loss as you felt the loss of your
son.” His voice had gone hard and his eyes were flints of steel.

They had looked up at their
names, but their faces were impassive as he spoke. He marched out of the house and
down the hill without looking back.

All the way back to the inn,
Trissa could not stop staring at him. Whether it was because she could not
quite believe that he was with us, or whether she thought he might disappear if
she were to look away, I did not know. Writ large over her face though, was
pure joy. They were chattering away as though not separated for a day.

Alathaya came over to me. “You
did the right thing. She needed to get him back.”

I smiled at her. “I know. I am
happy for them.”

This time when we went into the
inn, the guard did not so much as flicker a lid at us. We sat down in the
common room. We ordered supper and explained to Dhillion who we really were and
what our plans were.

I let Trissa explain to him of
their heritage. He listened with rapt attention. “That does explain a few
things,” was all he said once she was done. He was very interested in our
Talents and asked many questions before his curiosity was sated. “So tell me of
your Talent.” His face clouded over for a moment.

The serving girl arrived with
our meals and she set the steaming plates in front of us. The smell made my
mouth water.

When she went again, he looked
over at Trissa. “I was only eleven turnings when we were separated. I did not
know my Talent then. When they first took me, they were nice to me. They said
that I would be their son, that they would love me. How could they say that
when they had stolen me?
Taken me from my sister.”
He
shook his head, a mixture of anger and sadness on his face. “They do not know
what love is. I was not having it and it was not long before they started
getting angry about my ‘wilfulness’, as they called it. She would keep my food
from me unless I called her mother. He… well he would just hit me - for
anything.
If I stayed quiet, or said what they did not want
to hear, or if I did not respond to being called ‘Lonas’.
I think that’s
what their son’s name was.” He went quiet for a while.

When he spoke again, that glint
that I could not put a name on was back in his eyes. It made me shiver. “One
day he was getting angry and I knew he was working himself up to hitting me
again. I was so scared. The last beating had only been two days before and I
was still covered in those bruises. I thought he might kill me. Something just
snapped inside me and I screamed at him; ‘No, you will not hit me. You will
never hit me again!’ Saying it had felt different from before. Before, I had
only ever begged him not to, but this time I had told him not to… and he
listened. He has never hit me again since then. I realised that I must have
made it so. I started trying it with other things and the more I practised, the
better I got at it. I could make them do anything; could make them say
anything. It was fun in the beginning. I would make them do things, things you
may find cruel.” Shame flashed across his eyes, but it was gone in a breath.
“But they deserved it and much more.” Trissa nodded at that, her face set in
hard lines.

“After a while though, I
realised something. This Talent, as you call it, would not help me to find
Trissa. I did not even want to go back to my hometown. What for? There was
nothing there for me. So I stayed with them and made my life as comfortable as
possible.” He spoke nonchalantly, but I thought that for a moment, true
emotions flickered across the surface. That glint never left his eyes.
 

“Do you know why there are
guards everywhere? Has there been trouble in town?” I had been wondering about
this since we arrived.

He shrugged. “Not in town, but I
have heard there has been trouble in other towns close by. Just the other day
news reached us of an attack on Rhindale. That is only a day’s travel from
here. So, I told the local traders to hire guards. Not that I care if this town
gets sacked, but if the ones attacking are busy fighting off guards then I
would have a better chance at getting away.”

Seran seemed deep in thought.
“That is a powerful Talent you have. As I am sure you have realised, you could
either do great good with it or let it do great evil through you.”

He looked at Seran, his lips
pursed into a tight line. “If I was going to do great evil with this, I would
have started with Raminda and Thopher back there.” Seran only nodded.

“Tomorrow, we need to set off
early for Pharindea.” I turned to Dhillion. “You have been living here some
time now. Do you know the way to Pharindea?”

He looked eager at the thought
of leaving. He nodded vigorously. “I do, I made Raminda take me to their market
a few times. They sell the biggest variety of sweetcakes in the world!”

I smiled at his enthusiasm.
Again, I marvelled at how he could be so childlike at times. “How many days to
reach it, do you think?”

He tilted his head to one side
and looked up thoughtfully. “No more than one and a half day.”

Relief washed through me and I
nodded. “We leave at dawn.”

I stayed with the rest of them
chatting of small things for a while longer. When I had to stifle my third
yawn, I decided it was time to go to bed. The room was spacious and I thought
for a moment it was a shame we could not stay for longer. Tired as I was, I
decided it best to make use of the wash water. I was already half asleep by the
time I finally curled up under the blanket.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I was
the first to arrive downstairs for breakfast. I ordered enough food for
everyone and all but Dhillion arrived before the food was brought out and him
not long after. We were all eager to be on the road and we finished quickly.
Walking around to the stables, I turned to Dhillion. “Of course we do not have
a horse for you; you will just have to take turns riding double with everyone.”
He did not respond.

I asked for our horses to be
brought out and the sprightly stable hand went back inside. When the last horse
was brought out, Dhillion was still standing in the same place. “Do you want to
jump up with me?”

 
He looked up at me, his lower lip stuck out in
a sulky pout. Abruptly he turned to the stable hand. “Bring me the best horse
you have.”

“You cannot simply take someone
else’s horse, Dhillion. That is stealing.” I protested.

He gave me an impatient look.
“These people have done nothing for me. I am taking a horse for some repayment
for what I have been through.” His jaw was set stubbornly as he grew more
defiant.