Nial's Story

Lilly was holding my hand and occasionally putting her head on my shoulder. The fact that it was too hot to do so comfortably made the gesture all the sweeter.

“Someone,” said Benji, “should tell a story. The shrine is close, and if you do not practice with the drugs… the ceremony can be very intense.”

We all looked at him as if he was crazy.

He went on, “The church appointed guide was supposed to lead nightly storytelling sessions to acclimate you to the use of the drugs. And to the baring of your souls. But, from what I understand, you have been skipping these sessions.” I could barely remember the days of telling stories around the campfire. The pilgrimage seemed to have started a lifetime ago.

“It’s a good idea,” sighed Asuana.

Benji then produced a six-sided die and rolled it. When a number one came up, he pointed to me. I wasn’t sure how he had assigned numbers, but I suppose it didn’t matter. It was time to use one of my three gifts. “Fine,” I said, “I’ll tell a story.” I had every intention of making one up. The monk poured the contents of a pouch into an incense burner that lit itself. The smoke billowed out, making my eyes want to close and relax. I hoped the Hunter was strong enough to resist the effects if somehow Father Ori figured out how to get through the door.

“This is the story of the first person I ever killed,” said a voice that sounded like my own. Soon I realized the voice was telling a story that I knew the ending of. “I was young once. Maybe yesterday—maybe years ago.” I spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out whose voice it was, and I wasn’t fully sure until it said, “My father was a tax accountant for a couple of port businesses in Grennport, a small town on the coast in southern Lopesa, about as close to Seadom as you can get. Most people have never heard of it.”

The voice went on, “It was a cold winter, and a few of my friends who also lived in the countryside around Grennport were making snowmen and forts. A particularly memorable snowball fight happened, between myself and my best friend Stevle. I remember that I was winning, which made me kind of annoyed when I noticed that Stevle was looking pale and sniffling a lot. A few days later, my mom told me that Stevle had died that night. I should have been sad, but at the time I didn’t really know what being dead was all about.”

I saw Asuana stand, keeping her eyes on me the whole time. “Keep going,” she mouthed. I could barely see her in the flickering light from the incense and the sputtering torch.

In my drugged state, it was surprisingly easy to allow my mouth to keep talking while I watched Asuana examine the door behind which, presumably, Father Ori was waiting, and perhaps listening. “My father came home from a business trip that day. As he always did, he insisted on having a party, having some of his fellow business people over from Grennport. At some point, while I was sampling the wine and thinking about how Stevle’s dad would normally be at a party like this because he was also an accountant, I started coughing and couldn’t stop. Every breath that came in went out again before it was halfway drawn. I was drunk from the wine—so I didn’t know what was going on. I think my mom carried me to bed. I think one or the other of them hovered beside me for the whole night, while the sounds of laughter dwindled to silence. When the party had ended, they were both there, drunk but concerned, telling me stories to keep me calm while I fought for every breath. I heard my father telling the stories that I’d grown up hearing, stories about the adventures of his youth, and stories that his father had told him, stories of my family line. Some of them had fought against the morls. Some of them had been explorers. Legend had it that before the South Sea Nations were founded, my family had come by ship from another land. I had heard all of it before—the ancestral knowledge that was handed from parent to child, parent to child, and finally to me. As I lay there, my dad said, as he always did, that I should write it all down one day. Otherwise a whole ocean of stories would run dry. A whole family would be forgotten.”

Asuana pointed to a part of the door at about head level and mouthed, “He’s right here.” She mimed listening at a door. “Keep going,” she mouthed.

“I did live—obviously. The next day, I had recovered, and was breathing easier. My parents cried with relief and held me tight. They kept crooning and talking about how happy they were and about how strong and brave I was. My father said I would be able to tell the story of this night to my children one day and, as always, that I should write the story down.

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“Six days later, just before my father was scheduled to leave by boat to Drymar, he coughed for the first time—the first time ever—I think. I’d never seen him sick before. I’d never even heard him sneeze. He didn’t even carry a handkerchief because his nose never ran. So the sound made my mom and me freeze.

“He laughed and thumped his chest, saying that he was getting old. And he went back to packing his things. My mom relaxed and went back to her knitting. But I couldn’t move. I watched him put clothes into bags of luggage. I watched so hard that my eyes hurt. Every movement. Every twitch. When he coughed again, I burst into tears.

Asuana took out what I assumed was her knife, but it was still enchanted and invisible, so it looked like she was hefting an imaginary weapon, checking its weight. She cracked the bones in her neck and touched her toes, as if limbering up for something. When she realized I had stopped talking she turned on me and mouthed, “Keep going, dammit!”

“My mother tried to comfort me and tend to my father at the same time, but she couldn’t. My father dropped his bags, spilling clothes all over the floor. His whole body crumpled under the force of its own coughs. Whereas my weak body had produced weak coughs, he had much stronger lungs. And the whole world seemed to shake. I curled into a corner of the room and watched my mother help him to bed. She covered him with blankets and brought a bowl of steaming water with a soaking rag. Every cough shook the mountain of blankets. Within an hour, he was coughing up blood. My mother started crying and holding him. And I knew what that meant. He tried to talk to her—but he couldn’t say anything through the coughs. If he could have talked, I know he would have told her ‘everything is going to be fine.’ He always said that, even when it wasn’t true. I ran to tell the Academy graduate assigned to our area to come quickly, but by the time I’d run back home, my father was already dead.

“It must have just happened. My mother was screaming at him, pleading with him to stay, shaking him. The wizard went to help her, and I hid in my room. And that’s the end of the story, I guess, the end of a great many stories, actually.”

It was at that moment that Asuana did something to the door that caused it to fly open toward her. She jumped back, limber as a cat. My mouth dropped open involuntarily as my eyes began searching the darkness for the telltale shimmer of a morl. I never saw it, but I saw Asuana throw a punch, and I heard her hand thwack against something. Then I saw her jab out with her invisible weapon, and I heard Father Ori scream. Then, I saw her strike the air in the vicinity of that scream, using the other side of her invisible weapon. It made a wet thud. Then Asuana did some kind of wrestling move, which was followed by the thud of a morl’s body hitting the cave floor near my feet.

Asuana shoved the door closed again, shutting out once again any hint of fresh air from outside. The crash of the door closing made my ears ring.

“Professor! Light!” Asuana shouted from far away, beyond the ringing. I tried to search the ground with my eyes, looking for shimmers. “Professor? Where’s the light?” a distant voice called through the ringing again.

Then a bubble of light drifted through the air, bringing the pilgrims’ faces into sharp focus. Three more bubbles followed—small but glowing colorfully, like soap bubbles. Soon the cave was filled with them, like a fairyland. They floated low, popping whenever they touched the ground; but Octavius kept producing them at an enormous rate. It would have been beautiful under different circumstances. Asuana knelt in the place where Father Ori had fallen but when her hand touched only ground, she straightened and put her back to the wall.

“Use the walls!” said Asuana. “Stay near someone else.”

I grabbed Lilly and pulled her against a wall with me.

Suddenly Asuana yelled at me, “Nial! Catch!” I flinched and raised my hands to catch whatever she was throwing and realized, when nothing landed, that she had thrown nothing. Then I realized that Father Ori must not have realized she’d thrown nothing, because suddenly I felt a rush of wind and heard footsteps running toward me. Bubbles of light popped as something invisible stampeded through them. I flinched for the second time, and for the second time, no impact came. When I opened my eyes, Asuana was grappling with something invisible. She headbutted it, threw it to the ground, put her knee atop it, and yelled, “Professor! Ropes!”

The Professor stammered, either not understanding or unable to perform under pressure. The Fool, however, seeming to grasp the situation quite clearly, threw himself onto the shimmering mass beneath Asuana. He punched until Father Ori’s screams grew quiet and Asuana stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest. “It’s over,” she sighed.

“Professor?” said Asuana. “Ropes?”

When Octavius produced a rope that writhed like a snake, I assisted by taking the rope and binding the morl’s invisible hands and feet, while Asuana and Jonny stayed atop the morl’s unconscious form in case he regained consciousness. Beneath my hands the ropes tied and tightened themselves. Even then—with the morl tied up and unconscious—I could not relax until I saw the Hunter’s face break into the first real smile I had seen her make in a long time, if ever.

Then I sank to the ground beside our invisible foe. We had finally won.