CHAPTER 5

On the wall in my room there is a large map of the world. It shows all the major regions, the lines that separate them and the people and lineages that rule each. Since the map predates the Godtoucheds’ arrival, this information is hopelessly outdated. Who knows what kingdoms have fallen and risen on their whims?

Impassable mountains surge to the North of the world, and an endless desert borders its Western frontier, as the Ocean – decorated with a giant sea serpent – does its Eastern. Smack in its center, the map becomes more detailed and countries multiply. Tiny mountains, forests, rivers, and lakes appear. The scale of the map is so large that Reach doesn’t even figure in it, lost in a large mass of green hills called the Barrows. I had to pencil it in.

I have heard of treasure maps, and this is certainly one of them. Ever since Dala gifted it to me, it has been my most prized possession, one that I would stare at in awe for hours on end. In recent days, I have had time and cause to study it more carefully than ever before. The lines and countries were already clear on my mind, but now a path swishes through them, a black line leading from Reach – or the otherwise empty wilderness where I drew it – to the Red Harbor, now known as Black Sword City. The line exists only in my memory. I can’t risk anyone finding out about it.

A prospective traveler on this path could follow the Steel until it leaves the Barrows and then turn North to meet the Wide Road. This winding, well-travelled road would be enough to get him all the way to the Harbor, but it would be pointlessly slow. So my path grows bolder than the road, and strikes through every cleft of trees the cartographer saw fit to call a forest. At one juncture, it crosses a short, lonely mountain, labeled only with a skull, instead of taking an absurd two-day detour around it.

By my calculations I will arrive in Red Harbor in a little under two weeks. I hope against hope that it is enough to rescue Katha.

I think back to the day she was taken. Afterward, Medrein ordered two of his men to carry me into the house and watch that I didn’t do anything stupid. I was locked in my room. The sounds of the gathering in the square – the celebration barely lulled with Katha’s kidnapping – dragged on, the indistinct voices, the piercing shouts. Reach was in a good mood. There would be no taxes, no razing of the village, and to top it all off, they had gotten rid of the witch. The strange foundling girl, too pretty by half, too foreign, too different.

I'm a prisoner in my own room and wild thoughts are going through my mind. I'll break the window and run, follow the road, live off… Rabbits and fish and such. Find the Wide Road and head to Red Harbor, taking on jobs to pay for food and shelter. A roar of laughter rings outside then, bringing me out of my planning. I look down, and find I was already filling a sack with clothes. Besides those, I found a small knife, which I suppose I was planning to use to defend myself against brigands and robbers. The thought of using this blunt little blade as a weapon against anything but soft bread is so ridiculous that it stops me in my tracks. I let the sack fall to the floor.

When Dala finally comes, I’m sitting on the floor, leaning against the piece empty wall under the map. I hear her talking to my guards and then rattle the lock. Thankfully, I had remembered to tie the latch to its resting place. Childish, but satisfying. The metal clicks but doesn’t budge.

Whatever she says through the barrier of the door, I don’t pay any mind to. I’m too full of spite. It’s clear to me that she and Medrein conspired to save their village by sacrificing Katha. Someone that they had taken in, and therefore should love as much as their own children. What they had done was unforgivable. Something in me, some treacherous slice of my soul, whispers that it must have been a difficult decision to make, especially for Dala, but that makes it even worse. She’d considered her options, and she’d buckled. I don’t offer a word of comfort as she talks to me through the door, nor do I fill the silence when she stops. Soon enough, the sound of her steps moving away from my room signals her slow departure.

When she's gone, I breathe out and return to planning. I can see Katha transported to Red Harbor. The city filled with people, more than could be imagined, making her nervous. No forests in sight, the land flat as plate, the hills a distant memory. Her last memory of home: me trying to save her and failing.

Katha hates crowds, is what I keep thinking, over and over, a simple thought, yet sharp as needles.

No, I won’t forgive Dala. Not ever.

Later, Medrein comes. There are no words between him and the guards, just the heavy tread of his boots and the latch rattling under his strength. It bangs down again, startling me. I hear him back up in the hallway and realize what’s about to happen a second too late.

The first and only hit nearly takes the door off its hinges, breaking the latch and throwing it clean over my head and across the room. Medrein stands in the doorway, occupying it almost entirely. He doesn’t look angry, nor does he immediately advance on me. I rise slowly, tentatively.

He pays no mind to me and instead crosses the room to the small window I had been planning to jump off of, to regard the little patch of earth below where Dala grows some of the harder to find medicinal plants.

Heavy silence descends. A cluster of accusations build up on my tongue, but I’m too coward to speak them aloud. Medrein’s aura of command, his strength, do more than make me obey: they scare me.

“You behaved like a fool,” he says after a while. “Unworthy of the sacrifices made for you.”

I don’t answer. The little blunt knife peeks over the lip of the bag. The heavy metallic latch had come to rest on the floor next to it. Wild, insane ideas begin to assault me. I swallow them down.

“I’m going to Red Harbor,” I say. “I’m going to get Katha—"

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“You are a child no longer,” he goes on as I’d said nothing. “And you will stop behaving like one. No more walks in the hills. No more idling away with your mother collecting weeds. No more disobeying. I have arranged work for you in Mago’s stables. You will obey him as if he were me. You start before first light.”

And with that, he turns to leave the room, each step booming on the wooden floor, leaving me as disarmed as when he’d stepped in. The knife lays forgotten.

“Medrein,” I say. He stops in the hallway. “I’m going away. I’m going to enter the Challenge. You can’t stop me.”

He’s on me in a blink. Faster than I’d ever seen anyone move. He grabs the front of my shirt and lifts me as suddenly and effortlessly as I would a kitten. I look down into his eyes. His still, dark eyes, furious beyond measure.

“Listen to me, Malco,” he says in a low voice. I struggle ineffectively. In the back of my mind, I realize the arm that had grabbed me as I’d run to Katha had been his. “You have been given a gift. Katha’s sacrifice ensured your safety. I could say that it’s your choice if you want to throw that away, that it’s your life if you want to leave, but it isn’t. Your life belongs to me, do you hear? Disobey me, take one step towards Red Harbor, and I will go collect you myself.”

He drops me. I don’t get up until the sound of his boots disappears down the hallway.

When I look up again, tears are falling from my eyes, blurring the wall ahead. When I wipe them away, I see my treasure map, with every possibility that it encompasses. I can let Medrein’s threats take hold of me and shape my future. I can stay in Reach, penciled into an over-wide expanse of empty space and hills, watching the Steel flow by and shoveling Mago’s horseshit side by side with his brutish son. That is one option. The other is Katha, and the rest of the world.

There is no choice at all.

*

I make my escape not many days later.

The black line that will lead me to Red Harbor continues to twist and snake as I cart shit from several points in the stables to a big pile that will later be sold to farmers. There seems to be no end to it. As soon as I’m done shoveling Victory’s crap, Graysteel will have undone all the work I had tidying up his spot. When I go back to Graysteel, every horse between he and Victory will start to unload. Sometimes, I think they do it on purpose.

Mago’s horses are of the kind that has grown in Reach for thousands of years. Big, powerful beasts, with wide hooves and sure of foot. They’re too stubborn to raise easily but, like so many other endeavors, Godtouched make it worth it by the exorbitant prices they are willing to pay. Mago fattens his pockets, hires out the chieftain’s son, and leaves his own child, Bago, in charge of teaching him.

It is a good while before Bago realizes that, with Katha gone, he’s short on ways to rile me up. He tries, though. He sends me on stupid errands and gives me the lion’s portion of the work. He points out my smell, gives me faulty tools, and undoes my work with flowery kicks that spread manure all over the courtyard. I take a weird sort of pleasure by never giving him the satisfation. My back hurts every day and, after the first morning, I can’t lift my arms above my shoulders. But I bear it gladly, mostly because I know that this is Medrein’s plan: tire me out, don’t give me a second to myself, to think. But he underestimates me. Whenever I’m working, I’m not really there. I’m busy planning.

Just like the big pile of shit in the center of Mago’s stables, the Red Harbor is the center of a far-spreading network of roads and paths. As the Challenge approaches, and preparations begin to take place, there will be a throng of people wishing to attend the festivities, or, more likely, attend to the needs of the Godtouched present. No one will look twice at a young man travelling alone. And if they ask… I’ll say I’m a healer’s apprentice and show them the plants I’ll pick along the way.

My preparations take physical form. I fill a sack with provisions that I keep under my bed. I hide away cloaks, one for wearing and one to sleep on. In search of a weapon, I consider Medrein’s old sword, which leans lazily against the side of the fireplace, but discard it immediately. Not because I’m afraid of the theft, but because I can barely lift it. A staff will have to do.

Throughout all this, I search for the best time to slip away. Medrein’s men still follow me around discreetly, to and from the stables. The people of Reach still eye me curiously, remembering the spectacle I gave them, hopeful of a follow-up. I decide the best time will be at night. I can put distance between myself and Reach and hide away in the morning.

I surprise myself one day when I go over my plan and realize it is finished. There is nothing more to do, nothing else to prepare. That same moment, I feel my heart contract, and all the strength seems to leave my legs. I almost drop the wheelbarrow, nearly spread manure all over Bago’s shiny new boots.

“Had enough, have you?” he asks. Bago is always wondering if I’ve had enough. “Haven’t been here a week.”

“I’ve been here too long,” I say, and push on, gritting my teeth, not waiting for his answer.

Thatt night, I jump off my window. The air is still, the cold is biting. I wait a moment, straining my ears, and walk quickly around the sleeping house, then away from it. I turn around only once, a single moment of weakness, and look back to the building. It’s quiet and dark as a tomb. I never said goodbye to Rev, I realize with a start, before I realize it doesn't matter. I let the weakness pass and walk away.

I take the road into the hills, along the river. I remember that, just a few days ago, this is where my world began to crumble. I walk on, illuminated by the still shining moon, until I’m certain I’ve passed the spot where last I spoke to Dala. I never said goodbye to her, either, never looked her in the eye again. Thinking of my mother almost makes me lose nerve, but I steel my heart and think of her betrayal. It helps. A little.

I’m still thinking about her, my resolve draining steadily as I cast darting glances at the shadows around me with slight trepidation, when one of them rises. I stifle a cry, raise my staff.

The shadow slaps it out of the way.

“Real threatening,” says a voice. “I’ll have you know I’m attached to my life, but you can have my purse if you promise to spare me.”

“Wh— Rev?” I manage.

“No, it’s Garram. I thought that at eighty-five what I really needed was a hard week’s travel into a den of wolves. Yes, Rev!” she says, exasperated. “Are you going to stand there and gawp or come along? We’ve lost enough time, you know.”

“Come along where?” I ask, trying to catch up with the situation. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She stops to look at me. Even though I can’t see her eyes, I know the look that will be in them.

“Where else? The Red Harbor.”

“I’m going alone, Rev. You’re not coming.”

“Yeah? And what are you going to do when you leave Reach’s limits and a boar as tall as a man skewers you for breakfast?"

“What are you going to do against it?” I snap back.

“Out-gallop it,” she answers, pointing over her shoulder. “I brought a horse, dummy.”

On cue, a neigh comes from the shadows. I can recognize Rev’s horse, Farsight.

“Really,” she says. “Your options are either coming with me, and getting to the Harbor on time, or running behind and arriving a week too late. Oh, or die. Your pick.”

“I—I have time. The Challenge isn’t till months from now.”

“The Challenge proper, sure. But the Funnels start next week. I asked Mago. He was only too happy to let me know.”

“What? What do you mean, Funnels?”

Reva sighs. “I’ll explain on the way. You’re not gonna like it.”