Children of Fire (11 page)

“Okay,” she mumbled in reply, her voice still thick.

He could tell from the expression on her face he didn't need to emphasize the warning again. He stood up and ruffled her hair a second time, eliciting a small laugh as she playfully slapped his hand away.

“Can I stay inside with you today, Methodis? I'll go in the back whenever a patient comes. I'll be real quiet and I won't make any trouble.”

“Of course,” the doctor said with a warm smile. “You can stay with me as long as you want.”

“Are you sure about this, Methodis?” Captain Trascar asked once he had heard the doctor's offer. “Have you really thought this through?”

Methodis had thought it through. He'd thought it through dozens upon dozens of times. In the three days since Scythe had mentioned her meeting with Luger he'd thought of little else.

Luger had fallen on hard times. Last winter he had caught one of his customers cheating at dice in the gambling rooms at the back of his inn. Caught him red-handed. Everybody saw it—the man was marked for a cheat in a part of town where cheaters turned up dead the next morning. But Luger was never a patient man and he had stabbed the customer in the throat, right in front of everybody. At the time nobody cared.

And that would have been the end of it. Except that the man turned out to be a member of Callastan's city patrol. Methodis had heard all this from a reliable source after the fact, and the story was even more plausible given what happened next.

Nobody ever came forward to charge Luger with the murder. The constables in charge of the city patrols wouldn't allow that. How would it look if one of their own was known to have been lurking in the docks while off duty, gambling at one of the worst taverns in the district … and cheating, to boot? No, they weren't about to let that story be entered into the public records with a trial.

Instead they brought a very different kind of justice crashing down on Luger's world. They raided his establishment. They seized the illegal alcohol brewing in his cellar, and confiscated from his storerooms the banned roots and leaves people would smoke or chew to alter their conscious states. They arrested the girls in his back rooms and, more shockingly, arrested their customers, too.

A week later they raided the place again. And again. And again. Luger tried to pay them off; bribing the patrols was a necessary cost of the business he had chosen. But no amount of coin could keep the raids from happening.

They never arrested Luger himself. They didn't have to. He went out of business within two months, after running up huge debts with other whorehouse and tavern owners in the district. Debts he couldn't pay back. The patrols didn't have to execute Luger for murdering their comrade; the men Luger owed money to would do it for them in due time.

Word on the street was that the time was drawing very, very near. That was what scared Methodis the most. Luger knew he was finished. He was desperate and drunk and looking to settle old scores before he turned up gutted, swollen, and floating in the harbor.

“I've thought this through,” Methodis said in answer to the captain's question still hanging in the air. “Your ship is setting sail tomorrow morning. Scythe and I want to be on board. Most captains would jump at the chance to have a healer join their crew.”

Trascar shook his head. “I'm not going to lie; the crew would string me up if they knew I was trying to talk you out of signing on. We've been without a healer ever since Obler contracted the spotted plague and died last summer.

“But I'm also your friend, Methodis. And I don't want you to do something you'll regret. If this is about Luger why don't you just leave town for a while? A few weeks and he won't be a problem anymore, or so I hear.”

Methodis had already considered that option. He had considered many options. He was an observant and analytical man, after all.

“Luger is a vengeful whelp spawned from a diseased bitch,” he said with uncharacteristic hatred. “He's just mean and petty enough to use his last few coins to pay someone to settle his scores for him after he's gone. I don't want to take that chance.”

Still, the captain resisted. “This is no kind of life for a girl! Weeks, even months at sea broken up by a day or two docked in some stinking port teeming with unwashed Islanders.”

“Scythe is an Islander herself,” Methodis noted. “And the ports aren't as bad as you claim. I traveled often in my younger days, Trascar. Or have you forgotten our voyages together?”

“I haven't forgotten. But we were both young men then, looking for adventure. You gave the life up for a reason: You wanted to study and learn your craft.

“Besides, things are different now, Methodis. Every season spawns a dozen storms the like of which you've never seen! The seas seem to grow rougher and wilder with each passage, as if some great power was stirring the waters up against us. Shipwrecks aren't unheard of these days.

“And what about my crew?” Trascar continued, furthering his point. “Long trips at sea can do things to a man. Urges can make him try to … take liberties … with a woman. Things he wouldn't do on land.”

“You're too good a sailor for me to worry about storms and shipwrecks,” Methodis countered. “And you're too honest a man to hire on a crew that would do those kinds of things to Scythe.”

“What about pirates?” Trascar added, though from his voice it was obvious he was reaching for arguments now. “If they capture a young girl you know what they'll turn her into.”

“No worse than what Luger would do. No worse than the other brothel owners that will come prowling around her as soon as she comes of age. Say what you want about the life at sea, it can't be any worse than the cesspool here in the slums of Callastan.

“I've thought this through, Captain. If anything happens to me Scythe will be just another young girl alone on the street, meat for the wolves. Even if nothing happens to me a smooth-talking flesh trader could lure her away to someone's hidden back rooms with promises of easy wealth and I'd never find her. Or she could fall in with the gamblers and the drunks and degenerates that crawl out of every alley in this festering hole.”

Trascar tilted his head, trying to come up with some other argument to oppose Methodis. When the seaman stayed silent the doctor knew he had won.

“Say whatever you want about the hard life at sea,” Methodis added to sew up his case, “but things are far worse here on land.”

A wide grin spread across the captain's face. “That's why I'm hardly ever in port. Okay, old friend, you've got a deal. Glad to have you on board, truth be told. The men were anxious for me to pick up someone who knows the difference between heat rash and leprosy.

“I'll give you the largest quarters I can spare, but our cabins aren't designed for a man of your profession. Don't try to bring your whole shop with you. Just the stuff you think we'll be most likely to need before we reach Staeros and the other islands. We leave at daybreak. I can't afford to miss the tides, so if you're late the whole deal's off.”

They weren't late. The
Shimmering Dolphin
set sail from the Callastan ports on the morning tides as scheduled. Belowdecks, one of the most respected and knowledgeable healers in the city unpacked his belongings in what had formerly been the first mate's cabin. On the deck above his traveling companion—a young girl with dark hair, olive skin, and fierce, almond-shaped eyes—stood beside the captain at the bow, laughing and squealing with delight each time the windswept spray flew over the
Dolphin
's prow to sting her smiling face.

“Kee?” Gerrit called out, hearing the sound of the cottage door open. “Keegan, what are you doing home? I thought you were out playing with the others.”

When there was no reply he rose up from the table where he had been finishing his lunch and went out into the entryway. Keegan was standing there: a slight, dark-haired boy of eight, though there was a seriousness about him that made him seem older despite his small size. One of his eyes was purple and swollen shut.

Gerrit sighed and came over to look at his son's injury. They had only been in the town a year, yet this was an all-too-familiar sight. Ever since their arrival Keegan had been picked on by the other children. Partly because he was new, partly because he was small, but mostly because he was different in a way others could sense but not explain.

Other children, and even some adults, found Keegan's mere presence to be discomforting. He was too quiet, too somber. Too smart and insightful for his age. Children should laugh and play, but Keegan tended to just sit and watch with dark, intense eyes that rarely blinked. Even Gerrit himself found it unsettling at times.

“What happened?” he asked, tenderly inspecting the eye. The damage wasn't serious; the swelling would go down in a day or two.

“Fenthar hit me,” was the simple reply.

“I should have known.”

Fenthar was the son of Alferon, the local blacksmith. Though roughly the same age as Keegan he was nearly twice his size. It wouldn't be the first time the bully had fought with Keegan, though Gerrit understood such altercations were rarely unprovoked.

“And did he just hit you for no reason, Keegan? Or did you say something to upset him?”

Keegan didn't speak often, but when he did it could sting. Most children his age would use their fists to hurt, but his son knew how to use his words as a weapon. Perhaps it was because he was so small compared with the other boys. A sharp tongue was his only defense when the others picked on him—a defense that often led to black eyes and bloody noses.

“We had a race. I lost and Fenthar was teasing me because I can't run like the others. He was calling me names. He wouldn't stop. So I told him about his mother.”

It was common knowledge that Fenthar's mother had left several weeks ago to help her sister with a new baby in a nearby village. But Gerrit couldn't see how this information could earn his son a punch from the other boy.

“I don't understand, Kee. What did you say about his mother?”

“Everyone thinks she just went away for a bit, but she's not coming back. Not ever. I told him that.”

“Keegan! That's a horrible thing to say! No wonder he hit you. Why would you say something like that?”

The boy shrugged. “It's true. She's dead.”

A shiver ran down Gerrit's spine. It wasn't what his son said, it was the way he said it. This wasn't the hurtful wish of an injured child; there was no petulance or sullenness in the declaration. He said it as if it was simple fact. Gerrit didn't know what to make of such a statement, so he pretended not to have noticed.

“You have to go apologize to Fenthar, Kee. We have to go right now.”

“I didn't do anything! Fenthar hit me! This isn't fair!”

The boy crossed his arms over his chest and thrust out his lower lip, pouting. Gerrit found the outburst comforting: This was the type of reaction he expected from an eight-year-old.

Keegan continued to sulk as Gerrit dragged him through town to apologize to the boy who had hit him. He didn't release his son's hand until he reached out to knock on the blacksmith's door.

“Gerrit?” Alferon said upon opening the door and seeing who was there.

The smith was a giant of a man, his neck and shoulders a mass of knotted muscle clearly visible even beneath his coarse, heavy work shirt. He had a reputation as a brawler and had been known to blacken a few eyes of his own, though usually only after he had been drinking. He seemed sober enough now, though he looked haggard and tired.

“What do you want?” The smith's voice was short and curt; he was a man who didn't want company.

“There's trouble between our lads, Alferon,” Gerrit said, getting right to the point. “They're fighting again.”

“I should've known,” the smith grunted, his voice getting louder. “What happened? Your boy use a stick to beat on Fenthar's head?”

“What are you talking about?” Gerrit asked, confused. “Keegan's half Fenthar's size! Look at my boy's eye, Alferon. Your son did that. And it's not the first time he's beaten Keegan up!”

The smith snorted. “Well, your lad must've gave as good as he got. Fenthar came home and ran right to his room, howling and crying like he was a little baby. He still ain't stopped yet!”

Your son came home in tears and you didn't even bother to find out what's wrong?
Gerrit wanted to shout,
What kind of father are you?

Instead he took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. They were here to apologize. He had to keep that in mind.

“Yes, well … I'm sorry about that. Keegan said something to him. Something awful. Something he never should have said. And now we're here to apologize.”

“He
said
something to him? That's it?” The smith squinted one eye and gave them a dubious stare. “What in all the fires of Chaos did your little bugger say?”

“That's not import—”

Keegan cut him off. “I told him his mama wasn't coming back because she's dead.”

“My son was upset,” Gerrit quickly offered by way of explanation. “Your boy was teasing him. Not that there's any excuse for this, of course. I'm sorry for—”

His apology died when he saw the expression on Alferon's face. It wasn't anger or outrage or shock; it was fear. Pure, abject fear. He stood as if paralyzed with it, his eyes empty, his mouth hanging slightly agape. And suddenly Gerrit knew.

“It's true, isn't it?” he whispered.

Alferon shook his head, dispelling the strange stupor that had momentarily gripped him. “No! Ridiculous. She's away with her sister, is all. Helping with the baby.”

“No,” Keegan said quietly. “She's dead. She got sick, and you took her to her sister so Fenthar wouldn't get sick, too. But she got more sick after you left and her face got all these spots and then she died last night in her sister's bed. And now you're sick, too.”

The big man took a slow step back, holding his palms up in front of him as if trying to ward off the visitors at his door but afraid to touch them.

“What kind of a monster have you raised, man?” he asked in a terrified whisper.

There was a faint rash on his trembling hands, and a telltale discoloration in the fingertips.

“The pox,” Gerrit muttered, all the pieces suddenly falling into place. “Your wife got the pox so you sent her away!”

For a second it seemed the smith would deny it. Then the big man noticed the markings on his own hands and his shoulders slumped.

“They would have quarantined us all,” he said, his voice pleading. “Locked us all together in this house until the pox had run its course. Abandoned us here to watch and wait and see if we'd all die.”

“You could spread it to the whole village!” Gerrit snapped back, horrified at Alferon's selfishness.

“No!” he protested. “We saw it in time. That's why we sent Penelope away. Her sister had the pox once, but she lived. You only get it once, she can't catch it again. Penelope's just going to stay there until she's better. Her sister will look after her. Until she's …”

He trailed off and looked down at Keegan, remembering the boy's pronouncement that his wife was already dead. When he turned back to Gerrit there were tears in the smith's eyes, and his words came out in a desperate rush of half-choked sobs. “We couldn't tell anyone. They would have locked us all up together in this house. Me and my son would have caught the pox for sure! This was the only way!”

“By the Gods, man, look at yourself! You've got it anyway!”

“No! It's the forge, is all. The heat makes my skin raw and red. And … and the iron rubs off on my fingers, giving 'em a funny color. That's all!”

Gerrit placed a protective hand around his son's shoulder and pulled him back a step. “I'm sorry, Alferon. I have to tell the authorities. If the pox isn't contained it could kill us all.”

The smith's expression suddenly changed from desperation to anger. His pleading hands became fists and he took a step forward. Gerrit was certain he would keep coming, but he stopped short when Keegan spoke up again.

“Fenthar's going to get sick, too. Like you. Like his mom. But you two won't die.”

Alferon's head snapped down to glare at the small boy standing on his doorstep, then slowly turned back to face Gerrit.

“Sorcery. That's what this is. Your boy did this!”

“Don't be a fool!” Gerrit spat. “The days of the Purge are over. The Order doesn't look kindly on false accusations of witchcraft anymore.”

A look of evil cunning crossed the smith's face.

“No, they don't. You're right about that. And maybe I can't prove your boy caused this. But he knew about it, sure enough. Nobody else did. The Order might be interested in that, now, wouldn't they?”

When Gerrit made no immediate reply the smith continued, his voice low and dangerous, like the growl of a trapped animal.

“Think carefully now. You tell anyone about my wife being sick, and I'll make sure the whole town knows about your son. You may get them to lock me and Fenthar up for a month, but if you do the Order will take your boy away from you.”

“Now who's the monster, Alferon?” Gerrit asked, his voice filled with contempt and disgust.

“A man does what it takes to protect his family.”

The smith stepped back, his glance moving from father to son, though he was unable to look either of them in the eye before he closed the door.

His words resonated with Gerrit, for he knew them to be true. He had thrown away everything he had worked his whole life to build for the sake of his son. Since the night of the old hag's visit six years ago he had moved several times, hastily packing up everything whenever he heard a rumor that a Pilgrim or Inquisitor was in the area. Half a dozen times he had fled like a thief in the night, forced to build a new life in a new place, afraid a passing member of the Order might sense something in Keegan the same way the old hag had.

There was no doubt in his mind that the smith would make good on his threat to expose Keegan if reported. The Order would arrive soon after to investigate these rumors. But something was different this time. Gerrit now realized that he had been living in denial, just like Alferon. Deep down he had always refused to believe what the witch-woman had said about his son. He could ignore the truth no longer: Keegan had the Sight. By the ancient laws, he belonged to the Order.

Hand in hand, father and son made their way back through the town. But they didn't head home. Instead, Gerrit took them to the mayor's house to tell them what he had seen. He made no mention of Keegan's dream, but instead noted the unexpected departure and prolonged absence of Alferon's wife. He commented on the discoloration and rash he had seen on the smith's hands. And he left it at that.

As he returned home, he knew the mayor would send someone to investigate. An outbreak of the pox was too dangerous to ignore. By the morning Alferon's house would be quarantined, the smith and his son kept inside until the pox had passed.

The village council would work quickly to institute the plague laws. All residents would be required to undergo an inspection every third day throughout the next month until it was certain nobody else had contracted the potentially deadly disease. Guards would be set up on both roads to warn potential visitors away and to keep potential pox carriers from leaving. A call would be sent out for healers to treat the ill, and another for soldiers to help enforce the restriction. By midday tomorrow nobody would be allowed in or out of the village for the next several weeks. And by then Gerrit and Keegan would be long gone, vanishing into the night as they had done so many times before.

Keegan had the Sight. He had Chaos in his veins. But he was still his son, and Gerrit wasn't about to let anyone—not even the Order—take him away.